


A Bond Forged in Steel

by AwfulLawful



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Bittybones (Undertale), Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Bitty Terrorizes Human Owner Comedically, Edgies are Hilariously Evil, Edgy Owner With a Spine, Edgy Sans (Undertale), Fluff and Angst, Gen, High-Stress Bitty Rescue, Past Abortion (Character's Choice to do so), Past Abuse, Past Relationship(s), Referenced Child Abuse (With A Happy Ending), Thundersnow Sucks, Unintentional Matchmaker, past bitty abuse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-14
Updated: 2020-11-29
Packaged: 2021-03-04 20:48:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 33,551
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25252615
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AwfulLawful/pseuds/AwfulLawful
Summary: As a snowstorm moves in, a street Bitty struggles to free himself from his steel prison before any Humans find him.  All he wanted was some mustard seeds from the spice rack by the window - he never would have guessed he'd end up fighting for his life if he fell off the sill.
Relationships: Bittybone(s) (Undertale) & Original Character(s), Edgy Bitty (Undertale) & Sansy Bitty (Undertale), Original Character/Original Character
Comments: 73
Kudos: 130





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [poetax](https://archiveofourown.org/users/poetax/gifts).



> This Bitty variety is heavily inspired by the wonderful comics by Poetax on Deviantart, which is why I have chosen to gift her. Please check them out.

The Edgy snarled and twisted in the dark shadowed space between the tightly packed buildings. Being an Edgy his first method of dealing with any problem was to bite it. But biting at the thick, unyielding metal right in front of his mouth was useless, his clawed feet scrabbling for purchase on the smooth interior had no success, and with his luck, some street cat was going to walk by and bite his head off before he found a way out. 

Wasn’t bad enough he was stuck, wasn’t bad enough there were tons of humans around in this neighborhood so he had to try and be quiet so they wouldn’t catch him, but it just had to be fucking RAINING too. The only thing it did was piss him off and it didn’t even help his situation. He was damn well lodged in the thing; bone against metal on all sides, and he couldn’t take shortcuts through solid objects especially when he was hungry. Water wasn’t going to help him slip out – and even if it did he’d be going in the wrong direction – down – into whatever hell was underneath him. He hated to admit that fucking scared him. He had no idea what the hell was down there, but he knew he didn’t want to find out.

Of all the damn fool things to get stuck in!

A pipe. A damned _pipe_. Most self-respecting RATS were too smart to get stuck in a fucking pipe! Yet here he was, a dumbass bitty that fell off a window sill and landed in a stupid… fucking… pipe! 

If it wasn’t for that damn dog barking and shit he wouldn’t have fallen down in the first place. All he wanted was some of the mustard seeds from the spice rack near the window. He’d been hanging around that damn window for days waiting for the human to leave the window open like he usually did after cooking. It was already the cold season and it wasn’t likely, but still. Then he’d gotten lucky and… It wasn’t much, damn it – he just wanted enough to last him a few days! Fresh ground mustard seed, it was the best damn thing in the world. He could keep it in a spare bit of newspaper and make at least some of the vile shit he pulled out of the trash cans palatable. 

But that… fucking… DOG! Jumping at him from the partially open window, scaring the shit outta him, making him fall out into the stormy alley. He remembered he hit the edge of the trash can and bounced off to land right into a vertical pipe sticking out from just under the building. Tight as it was, he’d been going just fast enough to lodge right in like a cork in a wine bottle. He could barely breathe it was so small.

If nothing else he knew he ought to be grateful he had a big head. That still didn’t guarantee he wouldn’t fall through, he just had a better chance. He’d been too hungry for too long and knew he’d lost bone mass, just not how much. There weren’t exactly mirrors in the alleyways for bums to check their damn makeup. He did know his cheeks felt less round then they used to…

Humans passed by the gap in front of him periodically while they rushed home from second shift jobs and each time he froze. If any of them noticed him he was absolutely fucked. Mostly he’d been shutting his eyes to keep them from seeing the glow, but luckily the lightning had been covering for him for a while. This time he just waited for the splashing steps and chatter to leave before thrashing again and trying to get purchase on the metal. Wasn’t damn likely, but claws were all he had to count on right now.

Damn, this position was uncomfortable.

One arm was stuck straight above his head, the other stuck bent at his side between him and the pipe with only his bare fingers sticking out of the edge by his chin, and even though he could barely feel the arm trapped in there with him anymore his shoulder was throbbing like it was about to pop the joint. His shoulders were lodged so firmly he couldn’t bend the arm above his head at all aside from the elbow up so he couldn’t even reach down to help himself push and there was nothing nearby to pull on either. And to top it all off, both of ‘em hurt like hellfire. His legs dangled beneath him in the damn thing – he’d tried to claw his way out with his feet for a while yet but the only thing he’d accomplished was snagging his toes into his pants and pulling them off instead! 

GREAT. Now he was stuck in a pipe AND bare-assed from the waist down. At night. In the fucking rain. And he could see his breath it was so cold. Fate hated him today. But at least he hadn’t suffered the same fate as his pants… yet.

Another group of humans passed by and he ignored it this time. The rain was coming down in sheets and the thunder was loud, no way they’d notice-

“Woah! How’d you get in there?”

“SH-SHIT!”

…unless they were coming to put something in the damned trash can _right fucking next to him_.

Edgy could only tilt his head back a little to look, but even from what he knew of humans this bastard was huge. He looked like the guys that rode through town on those loud motorcycles in black leather, he even had the tattoos and the piercings on his bottom lip. The effect of all that was completely ruined by his coat, which was spring green and covered in pictures of animals that would have fit in fine in a children’s book.

“Here, let me help you get out of there,” he said, leaning down.

Edgy snarled. “don’tcha fuckin' dare touch me, asshole! i’ll bite yer damn hand off!” 

The guy – still fucking BIG guy – knelt in the mud. “Uh-huh, how? You can barely move your head.”

Edgy wished he could at least shrink back – those almost black eyes reflecting the light of his own red eye lights were intense and gave the human an otherworldly look. “f-fuck you!”

Damn _damn **DAMN**_. This didn’t look good for him.

* * *

The bitty didn’t look good – Pierce knew that immediately. The head shape looked all wrong for a Sans type. He’d seen a lot of them come through his office and knew exactly how plump those cheeks were supposed to be. Either abandoned or a runaway. He took his keys out of his pocket and turned on the little flashlight, holding it just to the side of the skull so he could inspect the poor thing’s eyes and teeth. The bitty stared at him anxiously, exposed arm twitching every time the man moved.

Pierce looked over everything that he could see of the bitty with habitual veterinary precision. Aside from the poor facial bone mass the bitty had dark rings under his eyes, duller eye lights then normal, and several small scratches and indentations in his skull. Either he’d been fighting out on the streets with other creatures, or he’d been abused. Pierce couldn’t tell which from a cursory glance in a rainstorm, but he did know Edgies were too much for most people to handle. They required patience and persistence to keep and were often either destroyed for supposed anger issues and biting or left to die.

As a vet himself, Pierce knew most of that was bullshit. It was never the animal or bitty’s fault if their caretaker had chosen poorly. He firmly believed that 90% of ‘problems’ with the pet was human error, neglect, or deliberate malice.

He put his flashlight down near the bitty to see if there was anything he could do to get him out and winced when it immediately tried to snap at him and failed, clanging his teeth on the pipe. He’d really need to inspect this little guy’s poor teeth once this was all over. “Do you have a name, bud?”

“dumbass human!” the bitty snapped. 

Pierce smiled. “You’ve got an attitude. I like it. Let’s try to get you out, ok?”

“sh-shut up! i can get out myself!”

Pierce leaned in closer and, without making any sudden movements near the scared and angry bitty, analyzed exactly how stuck he was. He used one finger to carefully touch the back of the bitty’s head and see how freely it moved while they screamed terrified profanity at him. Nope – it was a tight fit. The poor thing was wedged in there pretty good. How did he even…? If this was deliberate, Pierce was going to have someone arrested damn fast. One doesn’t become a vet without a high level of empathy. “Did someone put you in here?”

“i ain’t gotta tell ya' n-nothin’, ya' asshole,” he screeched. “stop fuckin’ with me before i k-keep one a yer fingers!”

“It’ll be a lot easier if you let me help just a little. How about I just hold your arm and you pull just to see?”

The screaming stopped for a few seconds while the bitty considered this, breathing heavily yet slowly because of the confined space. “then ya let me go, right?”

Pierce was many things, but he wasn’t about to lie to a sentient being. “Let’s talk about that after we get you free.”

The bitty snarled. “i ain’t stupid, asshole. that’s a no, isn’t it?”

“Would you rather stay here?” the man challenged. “It’s going to get a lot colder tonight and we’re due for a storm. Whatever rain is falling now is likely to freeze before long then it’ll snow. At least if I take you with me you’ll be warm.”

“i aint gonna die of some stupid cold like ya' weak ass humans! bitties-“

“-can still suffer _discomfort_ from the cold, which can lead to damage eventually. Especially if they haven’t had enough food and soul contact to be healthy. You, sir, are not healthy,” Pierce chided.

Reasoning with bitties was generally very simple. They weren’t like animals that couldn’t understand words and directions. Any type but the fell type was going to be respectful and easygoing so long as the person explaining the situation to them was respectful as well. Edgies in particular were a very different matter. Sometimes you just had to inform them of what was happening and why and let them fret it out. Pierce watched sympathetically while the little skeleton swore quietly to himself for some minutes and strained and thrashed. His expression went from pissed to scared to desperate and, finally, defeat. 

“FINE! just f-fucking fine. ya get me outta here n’ I might not kill ya while yer asleep.”

Pierce nodded and pulled his hand inside his sleeve. The bitty might have agreed but he didn’t trust those claws. He wrapped his jacket-covered hand around the bitty’s upper arm and they both pulled. Pierce gently at first, then with more force, all while watching the skeleton’s face for signs of pain. They made no progress, and clearly all it did was hurt. The bitty didn’t budge, and he started making small distressed sounds, so Pierce stopped and took a deep breath while he considered his next move.

It must be the arm inside and the angle that would have put his shoulders in when he was lodged in there. At the angle his collarbone was tilted going down was more likely than coming back up. He couldn’t just pull the bitty out without hurting him, probably breaking something. Even if he did call someone they likely wouldn’t get here tonight. The weather was turning bad fast. Pierce could see his breath puff and swirl while he thought, and the rain hitting his coat sounded denser by the second. The pipe was steel. It’d have to be cut.

Then, he got it. He took off his coat and wrapped it as best he could around the trapped bitty, being sure his hood blocked most of the rapidly freezing rain.

“the hell are ya doin?”

“I’ll be right back, I need help and you’re _really_ stuck. Just stay put-“

“that’s not fuckin’ funny, asshole,” the bitty said incredulously.

“Sorry – figure of speech. I’m going to get my neighbor.” Pierce didn’t wait for the bitty to respond – this had to be done fast and there was only one person in the building with late access to power tools.

* * *

The knocking at her door was heavy and urgent. Rita sat up in a haze and went to the door to look through the peephole only to see someone’s shoulder and not a face. Big guy, she mused. Being five foot nothing and about as athletic as a sloth she didn’t take the chain off in case the man was going to try to force his way in. It wasn’t really that kind of neighborhood but you never knew. She did open the door a little to see though, and vaguely recognized him as another tenant on the lower floor.

“The building better be on fire or something, it’s after midnight,” she said. 

The guy – she thought she’d seen him in scrubs or something in the mornings – looked really stressed. “Sorry, it’s an emergency. You’re a carpenter, right?”

Rita squinted at him. Without her glasses she could barely tell he was wearing scrubs now, too, and not sleepwear. “Something like that yeah. You’re a doctor?”

“Veterinarian. Look, I need your help. There’s a bitty stuck in a pipe by the trash bin and I can’t get him out. I need to cut it or something. Can you help?”

Rita hurriedly shut the door and unlocked the chain so she could open it fully. Soft spot for critters was definitely something she shared with him and YES this was now an emergency. The fact that she was in her purple velvet pajamas completely left her mind. 

“That’s the drop pipe to the old cistern,” she told him. “The hand pump was stolen a while ago. If that critter falls through it’ll drown!” The man’s face took on a panicked expression that matched how she felt. “Go hold it up if you can, I’ll get my stuff from the shed. DON’T let go of it.”

He nodded and bolted down the stairs two at a time while she struggled into her work boots and coat. It was cold in the hallway, so outside wasn’t likely to be any better. On the way out she grabbed her umbrella to hold over the poor thing and dashed down after him.

Rita had never personally met this guy. They’d chatted a few times in the laundry room, but she couldn’t remember his name. Everyone in the building knew she worked with wood and resins – she had exclusively rented the shed out back for her workspace and was damn loud during work hours. A few people had moved out because of the noise – but… it was her damn shed and the landlord had cleared her to work there during reasonable hours. It rather helped that the landlord was her grandmother. She’d work where she wanted to. 

Rita got to the trash bin just after the guy, who was holding onto something over that cistern pipe and talking in hushed, careful tones. It was hard to see under the hood of the coat he’d left for the trapped critter, but the lights barely illuminating his hand surprised the hell out of her.

Until that moment Rita had failed to register he’d said ‘bitty’. She definitely thought he’d said kitty, but half-asleep was not a good state to remember things in. It had red eye lights and looked pretty spooked, and now the situation was only worse for her because she was positive bitties were just as sentient as people. Fuck, this was like trying to save another person.

“Shit… should we call animal services or something? The fire department?”

“i’m not a fucking animal!” the bitty snarled.

“No,” the man said hurriedly, quietly and facing away from the bitty to keep it from hearing. “They’ll just call the landlord and ask for maintenance, which I’m guessing is you, then send him to a vet or a shelter. I’m right here and you can’t send this type of bitty to shelters – they don’t come back out.”

Rita groaned. Okay, that was a very good point. For now she planted the umbrella in his free hand and knelt down to tap gently at the pipe with her knuckles to see how long the bitty was. If they were cutting the pipe, she didn’t want to cut it too. Hopefully the landlord wouldn’t be too pissed, and even if she was Rita could fix it for free. Maybe without telling her. Gran was grumpy lately.

“Well, what do we do?” He said urgently.

Rita pinched the bridge of her nose. “Okay, I’ll be right back. I have a plan. Stay with him.”

* * *

The Edgy was not handling this situation well at all, Pierce noticed. Mostly because it was trying to claw through his coat and screeching at him. 

“what the fuck’s goin’ on?! what were ya whisperin’ about!? why the hell did’ja grab me?! why’re ya actin’ all nervous and shit?! what’s down there?!”

Pierce took a steady breath. It was going to be fine – he was holding on to the bitty and wasn’t letting go, and help was on the way. Telling him seemed fair, but pointless if it only made him panic. “At this point you’re safe either way. I’m not letting go.”

“just fuckin’ tell me, asshole.”

Pierce didn’t think it was a good idea, so he just said, “Just focus on us getting you out safe, okay?”

He continued talking to the bitty despite no further replies. Poor thing was just holding on for dear life and didn’t trust anyone, not that Pierce could blame him. Even animals that have lived on the streets had a deep dislike for humans, especially if they’d been abandoned or abused or run into one of those people who delight in tormenting them. He’d need a psychologist to tell him how a sentient pet like a bitty would feel under those same circumstances.

The woman got back a few minutes later with an assortment of things and Pierce took stock of the supplies – drill, reciprocating saw, spring clamps, and dowel rods.

“What’s the plan, um…?”

“Rita. You?”

“Pierce. Harrison.”

“And do you have a name?” Rita asked the bitty.

Pierce laughed when he yelled, “DUMBASS HUMAN!”

* * *

The Edgy could barely hear the two humans talking about him over the sleet and thunder, pointing to the tools the woman had brought and gesturing to each thing, then the pipe. It fucking terrified him to be stuck, unable to fight or run even fucking bite and scratch, while a human was gonna use tools on or around him. After a minute or two they seemed to have reached an agreement and the woman knelt down by him and started digging through a bag that jingled ominously. He groaned anxiously before he could stop himself.

The guy, Pierce, spoke loud to be heard over the heavy sound of the weather on the umbrella. “Just stay calm. We’re going to get you out of there, but first we have to make sure you don’t fall. You understand?”

“yer holdin’ my hand like we’re onna' damn date,” he grumbled through his clenched teeth, which he’d latched onto the pipe the second he realized the human was afraid of letting him fall through. Now was not the time to swear and snarl if they were trying to keep him alive. Even if they were just going to sell him or hurt him later, he wasn’t going to die right _now_ , and once he was free he’d come up with an escape plan.

“Yes, but Rita says that’s not enough. When she cuts the pipe it’s going to vibrate a lot and you might fall through anyway. First she’s going to drill some holes underneath you and make a platform with some rods. That way if you slide deeper when she’s cutting the pipe under the rods you’ll be able to stand safe.”

Yes, good… THAT sounded like an excellent idea. Not dangling half naked over certain dust was definitely a good thing, and they wouldn’t even tell him what the fuck was down there so it must be bad. Not getting his feet cut off either sounded even better. This woman, Rita, was either just smart or knew how much he was worth – possibly both. He didn’t like it, but she was his only option. 

The Edgy nervously agreed, “ok. what next?”

“After that we’ll get you inside and figure out how to get the pipe off of you in her shed. All you have to do is not bite or scratch us, deal?”

He was tempted to shout at them to fuck off with that shit – he was absolutely biting if whatever shit they did to him hurt. Edgy glanced at the woman loading a sharp-looking spiral bit into her drill and swallowed hard. Yeah, let’s NOT piss off the human with power tools. Not yet anyway. “s-sure.”

From there it went terrifyingly fast. The lady knew her way around her trade. Pierce held Edgy’s arm, Rita drilled the holes under him, put in the rods, clamped them down on each side, then the _loudest fucking saw on the goddamned planet_ made short work of the pipe. It shook him all the way to his marrow and the lightning flashes didn’t help – it was like being in a strobe light full of pissed off hornets the size of horses. 

He did feel himself slipping down and so did Pierce. It was horrifying until he touched the rods with his toes and started pushing up. The big guy might’ve been too scared to pull him up with much force while the pipe was vibrating in case it hurt him, but Edgy was positive it’d be better than going the other direction without a safety net. Edgy swore he would have fallen deeper and either suffocated or starved if the human, Rita, hadn’t been smart enough to think ahead.

Whatever else happened with this woman, Edgy swore he wouldn’t bite her too hard unless she was undoubtedly asking for it. He’d have to have absolutely no other choice before he’d draw blood on that particular human. Damn, but he owed her that much at least. Thus far it was the only thing they’d asked him for and she’d just fucking earned it.

“Got him!” Pierce said almost giddily, picking him up in his pipe prison and holding the whole thing to his chest. Rita snatched up the guy’s ridiculous coat and draped it over the guy’s shoulders and then he folded the front around Edgy. Pierce started walking somewhere toward the back but Rita stopped him and pointed to the top of the umbrella, already covered in a generous layer of snow on top of ice. 

“It’s snowing too fast. I don’t want to be out here any longer than we have to. Take him to my place – the door is unlocked. I’ll get the tools we need to get him out and bring ‘em in. And YOU need to warm up before you lose some fingers.”

She shot off into the near blinding white. Damn, but the blizzard had come in fast. The human holding him was shivering.

So was the Edgy. He hadn’t been this close to a human soul in a long damn time and this one was radiating kindness like a furnace. Weird looking dude to be that type of soul, but maybe the whole book-and-cover thing humans liked to say had a point.

Edgy swallowed and tried to breathe steady. OK. Ok… he was _still_ in the fucking pipe – further than before so now he couldn’t really move his mouth much. BUT he was out of the immediate danger of falling into something the humans had been sure would dust him. The was a definite plus. And he was going to be warm and out of the weather, which Edgy was positive would have fucked him up if he hadn’t found a decent shelter before it had come in. 

And Pierce had been right. He felt _cold_. He couldn’t feel his hands or feet anymore and he just wanted to go to sleep.

* * *

“I need you to stay awake bud, ok?”

Pierce made it to Rita’s apartment fast. If _he_ was this cold he could only imagine how the bitty felt. The pipe was so cold against his bare hands that it burned. Luckily her unit looked to be the same basic layout as his, so he went directly to the bathroom closet and got three big towels. Next to the kitchen – he had to get this bitty warm and stable before they did anything else. Holding the bitty would help for soul support but he doubted his body temperature would be very useful through a quarter inch of steel. 

He opened the stove and turned it on, then dried off the bitty and pipe as best he could before bundling the whole mess of pipe and clamps and rods in a dry towel to set on the oven door closer to the heat. Turning, he turned on the tap to the hottest setting and stopped the sink to get a warm soak going if the oven wasn’t fast enough.

Flashlight out again, he asked the bitty to follow the light with his eyes. He did, but reaction time was slow. Shit. Pierce leaned closer to keep up soul time and rubbed his thumbs over the bitty’s head in a light massage. A good portion of Edgies HATED being pet without being asked or asking first and pissing them off was usually the best way to get a reaction. It wasn’t too long, but long enough to be worrying, before awareness crept back into the eye lights and Pierce was rewarded with a low growl and tiny sinister glare.

“Much better,” he said. 

_“fuck off away from my head.”_

“Be nice and I promise I’ll get you hot chocolate when you’re out of there.” Pierce sighed and shook his head when the grumbling just got worse, presumably about how the bitty wasn’t his pet and how many ways there would be revenge once his claws and teeth were free. He kept petting the now blushing bitty; partly to help him warm up and partly because it made Pierce feel better too. He owed Rita a lot for coming out to help him with this and they weren’t even done yet.

She’d always been the weird loud woman who ruined late sleepers’ home time with table saws and belt sanders. The landlord’s pet tomboy granddaughter who basically lived for free as long as she repaired everything and worked 24-7 emergency calls for stopped toilets, odd electrical stuff, rowdy idiots punching holes in their walls, and the occasional guinea pig lost in the air ducts. Personally he’d never had any problem with her. In an eight-unit apartment building in a relatively calm neighborhood that wasn’t a terribly busy schedule. She kept within the reasonable noise hours and ear plugs were easy to come by when he had to work late. After tonight he was already positive she wouldn’t even mind the mud he’d tracked into her apartment as long as they had a fixed bitty at the end of this whole ordeal.

Lightning and thunder continued to punctuate the heavy snowfall and Pierce was just about to head out and check on Rita when she came in and pulled her boots off at the door, looking just as frozen and muddy as he was, with an armful of various things.

“Go change or something,” she ordered. “This is going to be annoying and I’d rather we were both comfortable before we start. Is the bitty ok?”

Pierce looked back at the Edgy and stopped petting him to feel the pipe. It was still cold, so he checked the temperature of the sink water and nodded. “He’ll be better once he’s warm. You get situated first and I’ll handle that, then you can watch him while I change.”

“Sure,” she sighed and headed to the back after casting a curious glance at the red-eyed, pissed looking skeleton bundled up in one of her star-print beach towels. “You and me both, buddy.”


	2. Moving Forward

Even though Pierce had warned him the Edgy groaned at the sudden temperature increase of being lowered into the sink of warm water. The metal took longer to soak up the heat, but after the guy had removed the clamps and rods the water easily rushed from his toes up as soon as the pipe was tilted. Once the initial shock wore off and he felt less stiff the Edgy started to relax a little and maintained his silence. It wasn’t that Pierce was pestering him too much or anything… he just didn’t feel like talking.

Not to a damn human at least.

Bastards.

This morning he’d woken up in his usual spot – behind a metal plate that’d been used to (badly) reinforce loose bricks on the back of a building nearby here, some of which were just missing. He’d hacked an opening just big enough to squeeze in behind the plate by removing one of the loose bricks over a few weeks of careful grinding with a rock and LOTS of bone attacks. Inside was a space just big enough for him to lie down and be out of the rain and mostly safe from anything wandering the alleys. He always slept there on a bed of the cleanest discarded napkins or fabric or whatever he could find to keep safe. It was two doors down from here on the back of a little pizza place. It was JUST close enough to where the workers sat to smoke that he didn’t need to approach any humans for soul time – he got a good half an hour or so every evening in bits and pieces if he just stayed in his spot for the end of second shift and waited for some tired kid to lean on the plate. 

It was, for a year or so, the best damn place that’d ever happened to him. They used to throw out the BEST stuff, at least until they’d updated their dumpster and locks a few months ago and he’d been unable to get into their trash anymore. 

Bastards.

Being able to smell leftovers he could no longer reach while he was trying to sleep was god damned maddening. Even the food he did get was usually tossed on the ground instead of in the trash cans where they belonged. Trouble was someone from the store would come out to clean up every few hours or so and he’d have to run out and grab it fast without getting caught. It wasn’t easy, and he’d failed twice now. Thank god he could bite through a jump rope given enough time or he’d still be tied to that asshole kid’s bike basket.

Humans were all bastards. Definitely.

…maybe.

Pierce’s soul energy soaked into the Edgy and warmed him a lot better than the water ever could. It was like basking in a radiant green glow. For such a scary-looking guy he felt all soft and light, like his soul was made of cotton candy. As much as it helped him with a good charge, Edgy was worried the guy would rot his teeth after a while. They definitely wouldn’t get along long-term anyhow. Not that Edgy would stick around any longer than he absolutely had to… he just didn’t trust humans. ANY humans.

Not even the ones that glowed green. They’d abandon you too given the chance. All you had to be was a little inconvenient.

The Edgy’s mind came back to the current situation and he frowned.

Well… he was currently being really goddamned inconvenient, and they were still helping him.

Huh.

That was NOT normal human behavior, at least not that he knew of them.

Pierce’s thumbs went back to the bitty’s head and rubbed in slow circles. He didn’t complain about it this time. Wasn’t anything he could do about it anyway, and he hurt so much that at least he wouldn’t make that damn embarrassing purr. It’d been so long he might’ve forgotten how to do it anymore.

He ignored it when the guy started talking to him again.

He kept asking what happened to get him in this situation in the first place. Did someone shove him in there on purpose, did he try to climb in to escape something, was it an accident? Edgy tried to let the guy know he was done talking to him. He glared, then avoided eye contact, he snapped once or twice when the asshole tried to look at his teeth, he kicked when the fucker asked to check if his legs were alright… and managed to draw blood. Ha. 

The dumbass just didn’t seem to get that what Edgy did and how he got stuck was none of his fucking business. The bitty wasn’t staying anyway. The second he was free and unsupervised he was damn well getting out of here. There was no point in trusting these damn humans. They always fucked him up somehow.

* * *

“Everything ok?” Rita asked. She walked back into the main area in a t-shirt and flannel pants. 

Pierce stopped interrogating Edgy and looked to her. “Yeah, think you can hold him here and I’ll be right back?”

Pierce glanced guiltily at the mud he’d tracked in before heading to his place to clean up. He had it done in record time and grabbed what he thought he might need. A clean carrier with a plush blanket, his first aid kit, marshmallow hot chocolate mix, and a vial of powder he didn’t use outside of the office much. It was essentially powdered monster candy that worked wonders for small injuries, but now he could add it to the cocoa and give the bitty a much-needed boost.

He didn’t have any bitty clothes here, though there were a few in the office just in case for rescues, so the poor guy was just going to have to live without clothes for tonight. It was the only thing he’d noticed from the bottom of the pipe before getting scratched. No shorts, and if the bitty could kick like that his legs were probably fine.

This wasn’t his first stuck Sansy type. Usually, it was just the head and all you had to do was widen the opening enough to get them out. He’d never had a bitty stuck in a perfectly straight object before, especially not a Sansy type… the main problem being that their pelvic bone was just slightly wider than their shoulders. So if it looked like this Edgy’s head wasn’t going through…

His pelvis bone must be in a lot of pain and if they were very lucky it wasn’t deformed.

By the time he got back Rita had pulled the bitty out and had him dry, looking through her tools while he stared at her with clear anxiety.

Rita grumbled, “You know, my dad lives in Florida. I’ve told him about thundersnow storms and he thinks I’m making it up.”

“dumbass,” Edgy supplied helpfully. He glanced at Pierce and back to Rita’s tools.

“What’s the next step, Rita?” he asked.

She got a blue case and pulled out what looked like a white plastic horseshoe with wheels on the inside. “I figure we should cut some ring-sized sections off the bottom until we get to the point where he’s actually stuck. Then we can cut vertically,” she said. “The Dremel will let me do that slow enough that I shouldn’t cut him as long as I can keep a steady hand.”

“n’ if ya can’t?” Edgy asked.

She smiled at him. “I will. Is there something you want me to call you, or am I actually supposed to call you Dumbass Human?”

Red-faced and spluttering, Edgy flipped her off with his outstretched hand. “ya must be fuckin’ stupid if ya think-“

Rita smirked at him. “I’m kidding.”

This didn’t have the effect she was hoping for, Pierce noted. The bitty didn’t relax and kept staring at the horseshoe-shaped tool. The man took a deep breath and picked up the pipe so that Rita could get started. He felt more than heard the terrified sob when the tool was snapped onto the bottom of the thing and used his free hand to rub the bitty’s head again.

“d-don’tcha dare cut me, or I’ll f-fuckin’ kill ya.”

“I won’t,” Rita said. “Promise.”

It took five small sections with the cutting tool before they got to his pelvis. The bitty kept pulling his feet up higher until Rita told him leaving his legs straight was safer. Pierce noted that at least he seemed too afraid of the tools to be embarrassed, but that said more about his distrust of them than anything about his self-consciousness. With that much out of the way, Pierce took out his flashlight and examined the pelvis bone.

It wasn’t stuck. It’d been broken at some point and fused back together at a slight angle thinner than it had once been. He knew exactly what an individual stress fracture like this meant with no other obvious breaks at the legs or spine. It hadn’t been a fall or an accident. It was way too precise for the widest and thickest bone to break like that without hurting anything else.

Someone had _stepped_ on this bitty. Not accidentally, not merely holding him down, but consciously put their foot on a living being and pushed until they heard a snap.

Pierce told Rita to keep cutting sections and grit his teeth. He couldn’t do anything about it now. Right now they had to get him out, then tomorrow Pierce would take this bitty to his office and damn well fix him. He’d need to get him fed and stronger for a few days before he could do the surgery. The break looked around two years old – he’d have to break it again and put it back right with a steel support and screws until it healed in the right place. His pelvis would never be the right width again, though. After that, at least, the bitty wouldn’t have a limp anymore – and he was positive this bitty had a significant limp.

Section after section came off until they reached his trapped elbow, then the Edgy complained about the pressure of removing the last section hurting him.

Time for the Dremel. He wrapped the towel securely around the bitty’s lower half so he couldn’t kick and scratch with his feet while Rita plugged in the little tool.

* * *

“Careful, don’t cut him,” Pierce said lightly.

“don’t ya fuckin’ dare!” he screamed, hoping like hell he sounded less terrified than he actually was.

Rita shushed him. “You’re okay, I know what I’m doing. Just stay still and brace for the noise – this is going to be loud. Sorry I can’t do anything about that.”

He couldn’t tell them he was no stranger to the sound of power tools – he remembered it VERY well. He hated the feeling of the cold metal vice-tight against his shoulders, still restricting his breathing even though most of him was free. They hadn’t hurt him yet. They still could, but they hadn’t. He did know the big guy was fucking pissed right now and Edgy couldn’t figure out why. Maybe the lady did something wrong? Edgy couldn’t think what it was, but he damn well knew – hoped, desperately hoped – that it wasn’t directed at _him_.

As soon as she turned it on the familiar buzzing shot straight to his core and he tensed up as much as he could to keep from moving too much.

The second it touched the pipe his entire world swam out of perspective. He could feel the metal start to vibrate and heat up as pressure was applied and he couldn’t stop himself from making damn embarrassing noises, pleading with them not to fuck this up and dust him. Pierce was saying something he couldn’t hear over the buzzing and Rita just kept moving the tool up and down the pipe, pushing lightly for what seemed like hours until it finally gave way and bit through.

It was just a few seconds later that she took a weird tool and got the tip carefully wedged between the cut sides squeezed the handles. The metal squealed angrily as it bent and Pierce got his shoulders free and pulled him up through the last piece.

His entire body _hurt_ , his formerly trapped arm was on fire and now tingling with the sudden return of the ability to move. All he could hear was a strange ringing and his own haggard breaths. Now he felt as if he’d been punched with how suddenly the pressure was off. The first deep breath he’d taken in hours made sparkles dance uncomfortably in his field of vision and he groaned against a wave of dizziness. He only had a second to gasp like a fish out of water before Pierce cut off his haggard excuse for a shirt and tsk’ed in sympathy.

“That arm is definitely broken. I’ll need to look for cracks on the collarbone too.”

* * *

Rita winced, seeing the jagged crack with bright red slowly seeping out of it clearly. “We’re not going anywhere tonight. It’s too dangerous. Maybe not in the morning either.”

She smiled a little as she watched the hulking tattooed sweetheart of a man handle that bitty like it was made of glass. It would have been adorable if the situation wasn’t so terrible. He shook his head at her and put the bitty in the carrier. At least it wasn’t so filthy after soaking the pipe – poor thing had been pretty ripe and that water had been an unpleasant color after she pulled him out. 

Pierce swore quietly. “I’ve got a friend with a truck and chained tires I can call in the morning. But I can make him more comfortable tonight at least, enough to take the edge off. You wouldn’t happen to have children’s ibuprofen anywhere?”

“Oh, I know who does. Be right back,” she said and headed to the unit of a man she affectionately called the Tetris God.

* * *

The Edgy didn’t move. Eyelights gone and sockets wide, he lay there in the carrier in shock. He could breathe. He could move – and SHIT it hurt to do both of them – but he was alive and not just a mysterious dust residue inside a stupid discarded pipe.

Holy shit, he was alive. The Humans actually did it! 

For a long while he just lay there and enjoyed taking deep breaths and slowly moving anything that didn’t hurt too much. When Pierce pulled him out to give him something that tasted like grape-flavored depression and wrap him in a washcloth like a damn toga, he didn’t bother fighting him or arguing. He couldn’t escape like this and they were playing nice for right now. He’d have to put up with it until his arm healed. That would go a lot faster with it wrapped up all neat like this, too.

He almost forgot about the cocoa he’d been promised until he actually got it. Damn, but it was good. Even after he escaped he was going to come back once in a while just to steal Pierce’s cocoa mix, or at least figure out what the hell he put in it.

* * *

Rita smiled over the rim of her coffee cup when the phone rang and a familiar number popped up. It’d been a week and a few days after the bitty incident and she was receiving a LOT of calls from her neighbor.

“Hi, Rita!”

She’d been expecting the call all morning. Pierce was a nice guy, but it was clear pretty fast he was NOT going to keep the bitty himself. Something about his apartment already having nine sugar gliders in the extra bedroom. As a result of this, he was giving **_her_** regular updates on the bitty’s progress in the office and not so subtly begging her to take him instead. 

His deep rumble cheerfully informed her that the surgery was a success and after a week or so of human contact the Edgy was doing much better and could go home with her soon, while the bitty repeatedly screamed at him to fuck off and put him the hell down right now and give me some real clothes, you asshole. 

She smiled and thanked him for the update. The other updates had been just as hilarious. She hadn’t seen the bitty yet in all this time, but from what she’d been told Pierce had been taking the bitty home with him every night, keeping him away from the sugar gliders, and essentially sleeping with the carrier right next to him for soul time. The Edgy **_hated it_**. He’d started calling Pierce ‘Sweetness’ and stubbornly sleeping on the far side of the carrier. When Pierce had to fix some of his teeth after biting the pipe had knocked them loose, the Edgy blamed Pierce for rotting them instead. When he complained that Pierce’s apartment smelled like rats, Pierce just said he liked his flying rodents. They fought like rival kindergarteners.

She sighed deeply and looked around her tiny apartment.

Rita loved this stupid building.

It was old and had once been a bunch of small dorms meant to house 32 students in total – 4 kids in each slightly rectangular unit. Whoever built the place had been going for the highest amount of rent possible while screwing the kids out of as much square footage as legally feasible. Each apartment was identical and split into three even parts – on each far side there was a little bedroom meant for two students in a bunk bed with only one pitiful closet to share and maybe enough room for one decent desk and a nightstand. Any more furniture than that would restrict walking space too much. Anyone trying to put a California king size in any of these things would find it literally occupied the entire room. The only bonus was that each bedroom had its own full bathroom attached at the front of the apartment so the bedroom could have a window.

The middle section, about the same size as the two-bedroom/bath combo areas, was the kitchen and living room split pretty evenly down the center with the front door being in the kitchen. There was no room for a table, period – the counter had just enough space for four stools on one side for a breakfast bar and that was all. The living room could fit a very small couch, a large loveseat really, and if you were lucky enough to find one, a coffee table as thin as a shoe rack between it and the TV stand. There were no balconies. Hell, given how stingy the construction had been Rita was amazed there was a fire escape on both sides.

The dorms were in operation for quite a long time before the college moved their main campus to a new construction on the other side of town. Rita’s granny had managed to buy the place decently cheap on the grounds that it had become a fetid hellhole (as dorms often do when not repaired in full yearly by cheap owners) and she’d relied on Rita to do most of the restoration work given her life savings had gone into the purchase alone. 

Rita, recently divorced and wanting to move the hell away from North Dakota and her terrible in-laws, immediately took up the opportunity to drive to the Great Lakes.

Unit-by-unit from the top-down Rita had drywalled, painted, fixed windows, repaired smashed tiles, replaced all the damn doors (why do the doors always disappear!?), swept up and disposed of enough booze bottles to side a skyscraper in recycled windows, carpeted, plumbed, updated the appliances to more efficient tiny models, and made it her home. She’d made this building into a LOT of homes. 

There was a pitiful laundromat in the basement that smelled of damp concrete, not a single dishwasher in the whole building, thin walls that made noise curfew very important, and no such thing as a leasing office – her Granny accepted or denied applications or evictions over the phone or in the nearby park or… on one famous occasion screaming, “GIT YER SHIT AN’ GIT OUT!!” from a taxi outside before heading to the bar down the road.

There were no more college students in the place unless they could handle the pain in the ass commute – only two units full up with 2 in every bedroom. Mostly the places were affordable apartments for those who didn’t mind living packed in like sardines, like moderately well-off singles who liked an extra bedroom for whatever reason and single parents who appreciated the option to rent the existing dorm furniture stored in the basement. One widower had managed to pack five kids plus himself in there – bunks in each bedroom with a trundle underneath one, his pull-out couch bed in the living room, and the organization skills of a Tetris God. She sometimes paid him just to help her pack supplies and stuff in the basement with his uncanny precision, just hang out, and sometimes watched his kids just so he could get a break.

As tiny as the place might be, Rita knew she could accommodate a Bitty or two in addition to her little parakeets. If Tetris God Dad existed with five happy munchkins, she’d be fine. And she had Pierce to help out. Even though he was clearly guilting her into keeping the foul-mouthed red-eyed finger-shredder.

Mind made up, she dismantled her dining table from the so-called living room by the kitchen and took it to the shed as the first step in providing her new bitties with some personal space. The extra bedroom just had her small sofa and TV in it, so she put that in the living room and completely cleared out the second bedroom.

After thinking about some of the horror stories she’d read online about some ‘violent’ type bitties breaking windows by throwing random bits of destruction at them, she went to the hardware store and lined every damn window in her apartment with plexiglass sheets. Wasn’t hard since there were only three – one in each bedroom and one in the living room, all on the outer wall. She then replaced the mirrors with acrylic ones, packed up all of her breakable dishes and got decent plastic, put anything remotely sharp in a lockbox in the kitchen instead of out where Edgy could get them, put all her candles and incense and lighters away in another locked box, and moved all of her cleaning supplies to the highest possible shelf in the closet in her bedroom.

Rita then proceeded to screw down every air vent, install a thick weatherstrip at the bottom of the front door to close the slight gap, spray tough expanding foam around every pipe opening from the walls and around every electrical outlet under the plate so the bitties wouldn’t be able to get behind the drywall, and generally fulfilled every mouse-proofing measure she could find too. Now certain the little guys wouldn’t be able to escape, she went to get supplies for a special project just for the Bitty Room.

Since the Edgy clearly didn’t like the sound of power tools she wanted to get it done before he came back, at least the bits that required she do it in here.

* * *

Two days later Rita went to Pierce’s veterinary clinic to pick up her pet finger shredder.

She suddenly understood the problem the bitty had with his clothes.

“What the hell did you DO to him?”

“What?” Pierce asked. “He looks great. The surgery went fine and-“

“NO, I mean what is he wearing? You made him look like an insane housewife from one of the square states raiding Walmart for gallon boxes of wine at 2 a.m.!”

“That was incredibly specific,” Pierce laughed. Every other person in the vicinity that had heard her laughed too. Some of them kept tittering for quite a while.

“You couldn’t even get him a _matching_ outfit?”

“Ok,” Pierce said. “The bitty clothes we have are donated. We don’t always have matching sets.”

Rita looked at the Edgy, who was tomato-red and refusing to meet her eyes. “You seriously couldn’t have done better than purple and green tie-dye pajama pants and a teal sequined flower-print jacket?”

“Yes, we could have, but he refuses to wear it,” Pierce said.

Rita narrowed her eyes. “Wear _what_?”

“The seahorse pajamas.”

Rita crossed her arms. “What color are they?”

“Pin-“

“Yeah, I’m getting him the _fuck_ out of here. This is bitty abuse,” she snapped. 

Pierce glanced at the Edgy and gave a little, ‘well… yeah,’ nod of ascent. He might have no control over the situation, but there was definite sympathy there. Even though he was wearing yellow scrubs with Marvin the Martian on them at least he _liked_ those, and Marvin had a big ray gun. Honestly, he thought the only thing that kept the bitty from ripping the clothes to pieces was how hard it was for him to move after the surgery and his newfound modesty now that his life wasn’t on the line with every millimeter uncovered.

Rita knelt and looked in through the bars. From what she’d been told it made the bitty feel better to be lower, since he’d have more notice if someone was going to open his cage first when they came down to his level and the top cages were usually the most occupied and switched out. He was laying on his side, most likely because his pelvis hurt like hell, and still refusing to look at her. 

“Hi! Sorry, it must’ve been weird and scary staying here for so long. Are you going to bite me if I pick you up?” she asked.

“…..no.” His voice was flat and disinterested. 

She gave Pierce a worried look and he shook his head.

Not adjusting well. Ok.

“Thanks, I appreciate it. Let’s go.” Rita opened the cage and gingerly helped him climb into her open palm. He was longer than her hand so his legs rested from her wrist down while he clung to the tips of her fingers. It was easy to hold him to her chest for stability and Rita just hoped she wasn’t jostling him too much. He was still on pain meds too. She ignored the carrier – she had a bitty-safe one in her car waiting and didn’t want to keep him in a cage. Bitties were intelligent and very much not animals. Everything she’d read said not to keep them imprisoned longer than absolutely necessary – any more than asking a passenger to wear a seat belt.

As she was checking out she nearly missed the foul look the intern at the desk gave her and the bitty. Thankfully Pierce had managed to get her more than a 70% discount being the actual owner of the business and all, most of which was his personal work. Someone seemed to think she didn’t deserve that, or at least the bitty didn’t deserve that. It wasn’t until the Edgy shifted and tried to get closer to her that she saw the sour-faced kid and what he intended.

“Hi,” she said slowly. “Checking out for Rita Kitzler.”

“Ah.” The kid gave her a sigh. “I see you’ve got the _biter_.”

“asshole,” The Edgy muttered, flipping the kid off. She noted there was a bandage on the kid’s thumb and understood the situation pretty well from there. Edgies would bite. That was normal, but they usually had to be antagonized or scared first. Clearly someone didn’t know how to do his job.

With all the future Karen-spawn-in-training energy he could muster, the kid snorted as he swiped her card. “Are you going to DO something?”

“Yeah, I’ll let you guys know what his name is after we figure it out together,” Rita said innocently. The Edgy tensed, but she merely curled her fingers around him. “I know you need it for his files.

“If you name it you’ll start getting attached to it. And what I mean is your bitty _misbehaved_. You should _do something_.” His tight little smirk was nasty. She answered it in kind.

“Nope, he merely stated a fact, _asshole_ ,” she said, and smugly flipped the kid the bird before taking her card back. “If you’re going to be working in a **_Vet’s office_** you really need to learn how to deal with bites or find a different career.” Rita walked out, leaving the spluttering intern looking around for nonexistent support.

She might be able to fix some small things, but the world in general seemed to stay the same.

When she carefully put the Edgy in the carrier and explained why it was better than leaving him on the seat for safety reasons he seemed to be listening, even though he still wasn’t looking at her. Hopefully, that was a step in the right direction.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I’m glad I thought I’d try my hand at this Bitty thing! Pipe situation and rescue inspired by my dumbass cat, who was lucky enough to be sedated while they cut the plastic off her upper half because, among other things, her feet had become a swirling vortex of hell-claws. Poor Edgy here wasn’t lucky enough to have the freedom to become a tiny doom shredder – but I bet he would have gotten some entertainment value from it.  
> Things that do not exist in this AU:  
> Bitty Mills (no mothers, they are created),  
> Lawless Hellscapes (There are laws to protect Bitties just like animals, and people who violate them ARE prosecuted if caught and charged).  
> Perfect Owners (humans have flaws. Nobody is perfect, even if they try.)


	3. New Things

Edgy hated being in cars. He was always in a damn cage whenever someone put him in a car and he hated cages, thus the association. He could at least see what was going on this time since this cage was made of bars and not plastic, so his sense of motion and direction didn’t get fucked up too bad. That was good because he felt nauseous and really didn’t want to puke. The pills they gave him before just made him tired and fuzzy in the head and barely took the edge off the ache he had after the damn metal plate that’d been screwed into his bones was removed yesterday.

The guy might have saved him once, but from now on Pierce could **_fuck_** _right off_. 

Of all the bastard things to do to him. Knocking him out with that weird smelling gas, cutting him up, and putting him back together again like he was the asshole’s personal jigsaw puzzle. Didn’t even ask Edgy if he _wanted_ to be fixed either. Just did it. Then he’d woken up pissed and hurting and dressed up like a pink seahorse like he was some kid’s fucking doll.

If he hadn’t been too high to move properly, he would have _destroyed_ the damn thing. Pierce seemed to understand what his offended slurred snarling meant, though, and put him in… this stupid shit instead.

Bastard. Fucking cutting him up like…

Like he was…

Edgy took a deep, shuddering breath and clenched his hands in the soft material he was laying on. 

Of all the humans that’d hurt him, Pierce’s ‘help’ stung him in particular. Once again, the kindness-type soul was strangely unfeeling and willing to do cruel things for _‘his own good’_. Even though Edgy knew he’d be able to walk better now, even though his teeth felt more secure and he had lots to eat and all his joints cleaned of the grit and caked-on shit he couldn’t get out by himself, even if Pierce was doing it with all the best intentions – Perce had never _asked_. He just explained what he was doing and why. But Edgy apparently didn’t get a _choice_. And that fucking _sucked_.

Pierce was treating him like a _thing_. Like every other damn human always did. Especially the ones that thought they knew better than you.

The same way Pierce had talked to the other two bitties that’d been there. Tell ‘em what the problem was, what their owners’ decisions were, and what was going to happen. No asking or input required. He’d comfort and reassure and explain and offer pain medicine, but he never gave any of them a choice.

The moron didn’t even seem to know why Edgy was mad about it either. Not that he’d even _asked_ why Edgy was mad. Now Edgy couldn’t fucking walk and he didn’t trust his magic enough to try and teleport instead because the damn pills made him unsteady too. He didn’t want to wind up slamming into a wall or something and barely had the energy to try regardless.

He took another deep breath and glanced to the human driving. 

If he had to wind up in _someone’s_ house until he could walk well enough to escape, he was damn glad it was Rita that took him. Even if she had a job that involved power tools, Edgy was pretty sure she wouldn’t use any of ‘em on HIM. Like Pierce had. Put actual fucking _screws_ in him and everything. 

Asshole.

 _Bastard_.

Fucking _bastard **humans**!_

Another breath. Stay calm. Don’t freak out. They _hated_ that. NEVER make a human mad at’cha when you’re stuck in a cage. You can’t **_run_** that way.

Rita was his best option. She hadn’t even cut him when he was in the pipe and kept him from falling down any more than he already had. Just like she promised. He could count on one hand the number of times a human – or _anyone_ \- promised anything and actually followed through. Wasn’t even the whole hand. Might have only been a matter of hours, but this one had a decent track record. Hopefully she’d keep it up. Just long enough for his pelvis to stop feeling like standing up alone would break it all over again.

FUCK, but it hurt!

Every little bump from the driving jostled him and he grabbed onto the bars in an attempt to not slide as much. He could tell she was driving carefully. He’d been in cars and knew when the brake was slammed or someone wasn’t paying as much attention as they should’ve. The turns were slow and wide if she could help it and she ignored the couple of people that beeped behind them. He couldn’t decide if she was just a careful driver or what, but…

He suspected she was doing it for him.

Edgy felt the car slow down and put his face down in the blanket. She’d been looking over at him during every stop and he didn’t want to be stared at anymore, or stare back. What was she thinking? Broken Edgies weren’t very valuable. Hell, _any_ broken bitty wasn’t worth much. You could just replace them. Was she regretting the bill? It’d been a huge discount since the actual vet wanted to keep him alive! He’d get better, he just needed time. 

Then he’d get the hell _away_ from her. 

He’d get away from _everyone_.

“Should we get anything before we get home?”

The question made him start and look at her anyway. 

“l-like what?” he asked. 

She wasn’t going to buy him a collar or something was she? Or a muzzle? He hated both, but if he had no choice it didn’t really matter. He knew a way to get them off after he left, but he couldn’t pull it off in a house. Not a lot of broken glass in there to saw with unless he made his own, and even that depended on if he’d even be let out of the cage for anything and how much time he had to break something without getting caught and how to hide the piece he had.

“Pierce said you can have real food again today. He said you already got breakfast, but I can stop for some takeout or even the store if you want. What do you like? Burgers, Chinese, pizza, pasta, sandwiches…?” Rita paused and waited for him to answer.

He didn’t. 

Food? Like real, not from the trash or the bland shit they’d been making him eat at the vet’s office food? And he could pick? That was too many things to pick from! His mind was a hazy blank. Seriously, FUCK these pain pills.

“I get it if you’re just too tired,” she said eventually.

No, he **definitely** wanted food. “y-yeah, we should! get food, I mean. just… you pick.”

“You sure?” she asked, and he nodded. “Okay, but you have to pick dessert if I pick dinner.”

“what, like treats an’ stuff?” Edgy hated the stupid bitty treats, they tasted like cat food laced with too much sugar substitute chemical shit.

“Whatever you want. You like ice cream?”

“thought you meant…” Edgy glared suspiciously. “y-yer bribin’ me.”

* * *

Rita smiled, glad he was at least _talking_ to her. 

She’d been doing a lot of reading online. Like… a LOT. Her job wasn’t exactly demanding, and her rent was free after three seasons of working her ass off to save Nana’s investment at “just don’t let me starve and I’ll work’ cost. She had what amounted to an allowance so long as she was on-call 24-7 for only eight apartments, one of which was her own. Her hobby of making interesting things for random commissions online was pretty lucrative. Dump a bunch of colored pencils in a vat of epoxy and carve it up into something interesting and some people would pay hundreds.

So, she had lots of time to pander to an angry little gremlin.

“It’s called making a good first impression,” Rita said. She laughed when he didn’t stop glaring. “Okay, maybe a little. I’d appreciate it if you didn’t bite me too much. Or set the apartment on fire or flood it or anything.”

“i ain’t dumb enough ta do that shit if I can’t get outside first.”

She laughed again. “Okay – fair. Please don’t do that if it could get _me_ killed, even if **_you’ll_** be fine?”

He gave her a look she couldn’t discern but put his face down in the blanket. “fine.”

Rita let out a relieved breath. “Alright – good. So, once we get back we can get you in some decent clothes and order whatever we want to eat.”

The Edgy just looked up to her blankly. 

Rita kept driving because she didn’t have a choice, but kept glancing over, looking for signs of discomfort or upset. He was a very… stoic little guy.

* * *

Edgy couldn’t believe it when she opened the car door and… then opened the _cage_. They were still outside! If he could have run he would have been able to leap free before her dumb human reflexes could get in the way of a shortcut! As he was now he’d just introduce his face to the driveway. Fate just hated him, didn’t it? Best chance of his life and he couldn’t take it!

He growled low when she reached in, but once again Rita didn’t just grab him like most people did. For the second time she waited for him to reach out first and helped him climb onto her hand. She wasn’t even wearing gloves or nothing. He could have got a vein and left her bleeding out or ripped off a whole fingernail. Pierce had even given her a glove and she just left ‘em on the counter at the vet’s place.

Clearly this human didn’t know anything about Edgy bitties.

But he was good. He’d play nice until he could walk. As long as she played the nice bitty owner and didn’t piss him off too bad they’d be fine. All he had to do was get out and back to his metal plate where humans sat down to smoke often enough that he didn’t dust. He felt a fuck ton safer when there was a metal plate between him and any damn humans.

He snarled and squirmed when she wrapped the blanket from the cage around him before walking to the building. “the fuck was that for? i ain’t yer damn baby!”

“You don’t want anyone to see that outfit, do you?” she teased.

He’d forgotten about that. “FUCK! NO.”

“Alright, then.”

He was quiet when they walked through the hallways. He looked around and took stock of everything he could. He’d need the layout if he had to get out from the hallway. 

The front door wasn’t locked, but the apartment doors were. All of them looked sturdy and weather tight. There was only one window at the end of the bottom hallway he knew he’d never reach without a we—aimed shortcut and two doors on each side… and a staircase on the right that she went up. Damn, did she HAVE to live upstairs? It made getting out through any windows that much harder. He could probably shortcut his way down the fire escape if he had to. It’d be hard, though, take a lot of good aiming and a lot of shortcuts. He’d need a lot of rest before he tried it.

He already knew this human wouldn’t be dumb enough to leave a window open, even come spring. He couldn’t even shortcut through a window screen anyway, no more than he could a cage, he’d have to cut through it. His claws could tear skin but they’d take a while to get through that damn mesh without just getting stuck.

That was fine. Maybe he could get his claws on a razor blade or a pocketknife when she wasn’t looking. Shit, she had a lotta tools, didn’t she? There had to be SOME in the apartment he could use.

* * *

Rita went over everything she’d read while she was driving home, her plan already formed.

First impressions were extremely important for Fell types.

Forming a bond of trust was extremely important to bonding _at all_ , and any owner needed to be _very_ careful not to overreact to whatever happened with a so-called ‘violent type’ bitty loose in their house. 

You couldn’t cage these bitties or they’d get upset, you couldn’t punish them for normal behavior for their type, and you couldn’t – ABSOLUTELY COULD **NOT** – dole out physical pain in retaliation. They remembered it forever. They would never trust you again and it drastically increased the chances they’d use pain to get back at you, too.

The best advice, offered by someone with the name PinkFlutterbye3, suggested asking yourself a simple question when a Fell type misbehaved:

_“Think to yourself - Will this matter to me in 2 years? If not – your Fell Bitty has NOT overstepped their boundaries. If your toddler destroys a window, you don’t send them away forever, you explain what they did wrong and replace it. With all bitties: you are a companion, not an owner!!! This is especially true for Fell types. If what you do would be considered abusing a child, do NOT do it to your bitty.”_

The profile picture had been of a pink-haired lady with five bitties sitting on her shoulders, arms, and one on top of her head – all were the violent types dressed in things that were the complete opposite of her flowery sun dress. They were ALL smiling. Clearly, she was a kindness soul and had really connected with her bitties.

Hopefully a persistence soul could do the same thing.

So, Rita vowed to keep to that advice strictly. 

The first thing she did when she got to the apartment was let him make the first move before picking him up, and then take him out of the carrier rather than removing it from the car. She wanted it to be very clear to him that the thing was _only_ for safe transport and not where he’d be living while at home or a place he’d be sent when he was misbehaving. You couldn’t lock a child in a kennel for time-out, so she wouldn’t do it to her Edgy. Its **only** function should basically be his car seat.

Next, she covered that terrible outfit so he wouldn’t have to suffer anyone seeing it if other tenants were out and about in the building. It would have embarrassed her to be seen in it, so she wouldn’t make him deal with that either. It was pretty easy, all things considered. Bitties were people, just very tiny people. Treat them like people.

Except, apparently, letting them escape.

Because they’d die and turn to dust without regular soul time.

All she could do now was take care of the little lifeform she had as best she could and hope he wouldn’t hate her for it.

Once she got to her door she carefully juggled her keys while holding the bitty securely with one hand so she didn’t jostle him. He either didn’t care or was too wrapped up in looking around like a curious bird to notice, and when she shut the door behind them he jumped a little. She locked it and went to the living room to gently lay him on the couch.

“Welcome home. My room is on the left and yours is on the right. Do you want to see it now or after we order dinner?”

The bitty looked up at her with a hard to read stare. “food first.”

“Sure, okay. Do you want to change your clothes before we figure out the order?” 

He shook his head.

Mental note: Food is always first. Bitty likes to eat.

She got her phone and pulled up the delivery app, letting him scroll through the options before he seemed interested. Rita selected the one that caught his eye, let him pick his order, then added hers and switched to the dessert section. He hesitated.

“Pick whatever you want, bud. You’ve been through a lot. Besides, the first day in a new home is always supposed to be a good one!”

“how much?” he asked.

“I don’t have a budget for this – don’t worry about it. Just pick what you want,” she said.

His little boney hands hovered over the most expensive item for a few moments while he watched her, then he selected it when she didn’t react. 

“Good choice! Is that enough, or do you want another one for tomorrow too?”

“f-fuck, i changed my mind,” he said suddenly.

Rita nodded. “That’s okay, just let me cancel that and you can pick anything else.”

It took a moment, but he eventually selected two things – each different, and Rita put hers in. Once submitted she checked the estimated delivery time and told him how long it would take.

“Okay,” she said patiently. “Do you want to see your room now or change your clothes?”

“whatever.”

She held her hand out for him again, but still didn’t just grab him.

The look she got for a second confirmed he appreciated it.

Well… step 2 of gaining his trust would be interesting. Hopefully she hadn’t messed it up somehow.

NO cages. He needed his own safe zone, one she wouldn’t enter without either asking or letting him know first. It could have been a corner of one room or under a single piece of furniture or… she had a better idea.

Rita was in no way gullible enough to buy official Bitty furniture, but she didn’t need to. Nobody with a modicum of talent really did. Why pay several hundred dollars for a generic plain twin-size bitty bed when she could get a 15 dollar doll bed from Ikea big enough for a cat, add cushioning for a mattress and let her bitty pick what colors and fabrics he wanted? Why drop several thousand for a pre-made bitty house when she could damn well let him design it himself with a floorplan guide online and make it from scratch? She’d made dollhouses with electricity and working lights before.

Rita didn’t have remotely everything she planned on yet. The bitty would just have to be patient while they worked together to perfect his safe space how _he_ liked it.

In the meantime, hopefully what she had thus far would be enough.

* * *

Edgy wanted to snarl into the couch and scratch this bitch up. The hell did she mean ‘room’? Just get the whole ‘here’s-your-cage-isn’t-it-pretty?’ bullshit over with. Must just have a different one for the house. Hopefully it was bigger than the one in the car.

It’d _better_ be bigger than the one in the car. He could’a barely stood up in it. There was a chair with straps in the back of it to tie him down or some shit, too. He’d probably have been put in it if he wasn’t supposed to be lying down right now.

“whatever,” he groused.

She reached out for him again and stopped short for the third time. Edgy looked up to see if she was fucking serious and… apparently, she was. At least she wasn’t snatching him up and manhandling him he was like her damn doll. Not even now that there wasn’t anybody to see her do it. Huh.

He let her pick him up, balancing as best he could.

When she walked to the door on the far side of the kitchen, he sort of just… went limp. So this was the spare room. Maybe she’d let him out of the cage once a month or so. Maybe. Wasn’t like he could do much about it once the door was locked. Otherwise he’d be working with bits and pieces of bath time and – if he was willing to do something drastic – vet visits. Couldn’t be worse than not being able to goddamned walk.

After the door opened, he started scanning the room for his cage and escape routes, only to find….

A room.

With a bed in it.

A BIG bed for him, even though it was dwarfed by the space. And NOT inside a cage. It was on the floor. In the room. With other things around it for him to play with and use.

It was… a **B E D … R O O M**.

When she sat down with him and started talking, he barely heard her. Something about painting this bed and…. The room and… stuff. Things. And **_he_** could pick. Pillows and colors and...

There was a bathroom that was completely… his!? He had clothes you helped change him into – black and red and…

…and…

…there’d be more if he wanted!?

Rita apologized because it wasn’t **right** yet, because she needed him to tell her what _he wanted_ before she could fix it. Make it bigger. Make it _better_. Then you told him he could explore if he wanted and you’d… help. But if you didn’t want help and wanted to sleep first, that was ok.

The food got there. He ate.

It was GOOD. She even got the extra mustard he wanted. And the desserts.

She let him have it. ALL of it. She put what he couldn’t eat in the fridge.

HIS fridge. In HIS room. HE HAD A TINY FRIDGE FOR HIS OWN FOOD. In HIS fucking room!

And when she went to bed… she left the doors open. All of ‘em. Even hers. Because he had the place to himself and he could… get in your bed… if he wanted to.

For soul time.

He could explore.

So… he did.

When he was certain she was asleep he clawed his way out of the bed, the room it was in, the room in the entire home he could get through if he wanted. It HURT but he did it – inch by inch with his hands and claws because he… Couldn’t. Fucking. Stand. UP. And he couldn’t’ take shortcuts like this, either. 

He looked everywhere he could. The cabinets in the kitchen and bathrooms, the closets, the storage and utility closet, and he even stuck his head under the other furniture, trying to find it. Trying to figure out what damned game she was playing.

But he couldn’t find it.

There was no cage in here.

There was NOT A CAGE IN THIS PLACE.

What the fuck kind of game was she playing!?

Scared and, he hated to admit it, REALLY damned freaked out by this weirdness, he clawed his way back to his…. Bedroom… bed… and tried to go to sleep.

* * *

Rita sighed while she ran the vacuum cleaner for the third time today. She knew she just _had_ to be patient and let him adjust, but…

The Edgy didn’t at all make that easy.

She got back from working in the shed a few days after the Edgy had started gingerly walking again and found pretty deep scratches in most of the plexiglass as well as the sealer, meaning the bitty was actively trying to escape. She decided not to confront him about it because he hid from her for a long while after she’d discovered them, likely expecting he was in trouble. When it became clear she wasn’t about to punish him over it he ramped up his efforts to get out only to discover she’d bitty-proofed the hell out of her apartment.

He’d been… pretty **pissed**. And decided he was going to MAKE her get rid of him willingly instead.

Within 24 hours of regaining the ability to walk comfortably he had:

  * Shredded ¾ of the house plants (i.e. the ones he could reach).
  * Scratched creative profanity into several walls with his claws.
  * **Repeatedly** tried his damndest to break every single window, which only made him wail in fury when he failed.
  * Broken three cups she’d left on the counter to dry, including the one she’d bought for him.
  * Practically eaten most of a 400-ish page thesaurus and spread it’s sad crinkled remains around the apartment, presumably as a warning to the rest of the books.
  * Stolen only _one_ earring of every single pair she owned, leaving the rest to contemplate when they were next.
  * Pulled every button off her winter coat, of which she had yet to find a single one. Hopefully he hadn’t swallowed them.
  * _Somehow_ managed to TP the light fixture over the breakfast bar with an efficiency that put most bored teens on Halloween to shame.
  * Creatively dismembered a rubber duck, a bottle of dish soap, and a stuffed animal in the kitchen sink on separate occasions.
  * Painted a figure of himself flipping her off on the bathroom door with the lipstick he’d stolen from her purse
  * Apparently, very carefully snuck onto her nightstand while she was asleep in order to steal her glasses.
  * Devour every piece of chocolate in the house (no blame there – did it herself a few times)
  * AND devoted himself to staying up late and turning the volume on her tv up to the highest possible volume setting at 2~ish am every single night.



All of which without her actually **_seeing_** any of it. She’d only _heard_ him run off with her glasses. Thank god she had a few spares.

She was beginning to think she’d inadvertently adopted Schrödinger’s Asshole. Every time she went to one room to investigate a strange noise like an idiot in a horror movie he took a shortcut somewhere else and escaped witness-free before she was finished cleaning up the previous mess. 

When he wasn’t being an invisible agent of chaos he was hiding under the kitchen counters where she was unable to reach him and growling at her feet every time she passed by. At some point he had slaughtered her favorite sweater with extreme prejudice and made a nest under the cabinets from a pile of very expensive poufy confetti. Upon further investigation with a flashlight while he was probably murdering yet another roll of toilet paper in the bathroom and trying to clog the sink with it, she discovered there were enough sparkles within the nest to confirm the location of her earrings in addition to a now eviscerated couch pillow, the resulting fluff, and some… feathers? How’d he catch a bird if he couldn’t get outside?

It took her a few seconds before realization dawned. That was… mildly impressive. How had he been able to reach it? 

She sat up and muttered quietly, “Motherfucker ate my dreamcatcher.”

A quiet chuckle nearby alerted her to her audience, and she decided to finally give him _some_ credit for all the effort he was putting in.

“I made that when I was twelve, you psychotic gremlin!”

“more where that came from! you ready to let me out now, human?”

All things considered, she was willing to accept this as pretty reasonable revenge for the vet stay. She’d read a LOT about Edgy Bitties in the week she’d been planning to take him home and already boxed up anything she highly valued and hid it at her Nan’s place. Any good Samaritan would agree that living beings were more important than objects BUT being careful was just smart. Otherwise, anything he destroyed or got messy could easily be replaced. He hadn’t physically attacked her yet, not even when she was asleep, and that was a pretty good sign. She’d had foster cats cause more destruction than this bitty had and cats definitely aimed for the eyes. 

It honestly felt like he was simply testing her with less zeal than she’d been expecting after reading the horror stories online. He didn’t bite her too hard – that was the number one thing everyone said to watch out for. He’d bitten Pierce, he’d bitten the kid at the front desk, he’d nearly bitten one of her wooden spoons in half – but when he bit her it was never more than enough to warn or surprise her. It was like having an overzealous ferret rather than an Edgy.

On one hand she was glad he wasn’t leaving her hands a shredded mess. On the other hand WHY wasn’t he biting like a normal Edgy would when upset? Had he been punished so severely by a previous owner that he wouldn’t dare make his owner bleed? That thought was honestly disturbing. The one cat she’d fostered with a similar resistance to defending itself had eventually stressed itself to death just because it trusted no one ever again.

Still, bitties were very much not cats, and she was endlessly grateful that at least bitties couldn’t piss ammonia-scented fury on everything in her immediate vicinity out of spite. 

“you’ll give up eventually,” he growled when she didn’t answer. “there’s a lotta nice shit in this place for me to destroy.”

“I’m beginning to think Edgy Bitties were designed by a masochist,” she said loudly. Standing for effect, she placed her hand on her chest and said to the mirror, “Yes, Sir! It’s a Sans type bitty! The traits? Well… we’d like to turn their eyes red, give them shark teeth and razor blades on all four limbs, then fill them with the **_rage_** _of a thousand suns_.” 

She then turned and imitated a deeper, more authoritative tone. “Brilliant, Mr. Asskiss! Double the price and sell them to _children_.”

He definitely stifled a laugh just then.

“Give it up, man. You’re staying. So you’ll need a name.”

She’d listed off a LOT of them lately. Rita needed to let him pick his own name. He wasn’t a thing, he was a person, so she’d need to watch his reaction and see if he liked it even if he verbally denied that he liked it. Fell Bitties often gave zero verbal cues before a bond – most of it was nonverbal. She could probably spot a foreign spy by now with how much she’d looked into nonverbal cues.

 _“if ya name **it **ya’ll start gettin’ attached ta **it** ,”_ he mimicked the vet receptionist acidly.

The voice had definitely come from under the nearby chair, so she knelt down and lay her head on the floor so she could see his mean little eye lights from underneath. 

He scrambled back with a surprised, “shit!” and glared at her.

She smiled. “Yeah, I’m just gonna call you **Havoc**.”

Very briefly she could have sworn his eye lights took on a star-like shape before he turned his head away from her and grunted. He’d smiled and relaxed a little. Above all else – he’d started to lean toward her instead of away and moved his dominant hand in a dismissive gesture, almost casually.

“f-fine, if ya wanna waste yer time namin’ me when i aint stayin anyway.”

“Do you like it, Havoc? Is it a good name?”

 _“shattup, human!”_ Havoc snapped.

“Alright, I’m heading to bed. Do you want me to get another big book for you to sharpen your claws on? I know I don’t have anything yet – and if you’re alright helping me design it I promise I’ll start building you a house in your room tomorrow.”

“a what!?” He’d turned just then enough for her to see how red his face was, just before he turned back around and grumbled. “ya don’t need ta get me nothin’ cause I ain’t stayin! ain’t no fun if ya _let me_ shred stuff either.”

She slowly offered her hand to him under the furniture and he opened his jaws in warning but did no more than wait until she drew her hand back before closing his mouth again with a little snap. Rita lay down fully on the floor and tried to relax there. This conversation was over due and… was probably gonna suck. 

“I, uh… found your pill stash today.”

The bitty tensed up and started to sweat but said nothing.

Pierce had come over a few times to check on the little guy, but he always _always_ hid and managed to evade him after the first visit. They just couldn’t catch him. Pierce sort of mentioned the pills were supposed to make shortcuts more difficult. Not _intentionally_ but because of the cognitive fuzziness they caused as a side-effect – and Rita had recently found the little stash – the bitty had stopped actually taking his pain pills. She watched him every time, but… instead he’d just been hiding them in his bitty mouth somehow and spitting them out to hide instead. Pierce had thought maybe he was resistant to the meds because he MUST have been using shortcuts to pull off hiding like that.

Given how many pills she’d found, though…

Clever little guy. Still, he must have been in a lot of pain and barely reacted to it for nearly a week. That didn’t bode well for his past history, if he could handle it so easily without giving off any obvious signs of discomfort.

“Dude…. I know you don’t trust me, and I get it. You must have been through some seriously nasty stuff. But, you know, it’s sort of illegal to force people to take medicine they don’t want, especially if it’s not life-preserving. If you wanted to stop taking those pills I would have understood. It would have been safer to wean off of them slowly. I wouldn’t be mad if you just told me though. You didn’t have to hide it.”

 _“i ain’t **people** , i'm a **bitty** ,”_ he snapped acidly, voice breaking at the last word.

…and this was where Rita was very grateful for her personal communication with PinkFlutterbye3.

It was an extremely difficult topic to talk about with a conscious, sentient being that’d clearly been treated like an animal by bastards.


	4. Round Two of Bitty Rescue

Pierce sat at his desk and fretted. 

Being a vet sucked sometimes. It was hard on the heart.

People did terrible things to anything weaker than they were with astounding frequency. Most of them suffered no consequences for it either, unless there was someone willing to spend a lot more money than an animal was monetarily worth to press charges. Winter was the worst for Pierce, because those animals often sought shelter in places where they could be found, places that were heated and occupied by humans. They got brought in and saved more often and that was definitely good.

It also meant that Pierce got a closer look at the terrible things humans did to animals and bitties.

He could still hear the poor bitty he’d been working with most of the day shivering so hard in his kennel that his bones constantly made little clacking noises on the metal corner walls he’d pressed himself into. He couldn’t blame the poor thing for being terrified. The guy that’d brought the bitty in didn’t want him, but was at least kind enough to take him here after finding the little guy in his shed all beat up and sheltering from the cold, apparently trying to get into some of the containers of paint thinner as well.

Pierce was sure it was a Gaster bitty, but not what type. Solid bone, yes, so not the softer-bodied varieties. The other two main indicators were eye color and skull variation, as well as their behavior. However… the bitty was so weak that his singular eye light wouldn’t manifest at all. He was having trouble keeping his fingers on his hands and both of his smallest toes had at some point already fallen off and presumably dusted because he didn’t have enough energy to keep them attached. You couldn’t gauge behavior in a bitty this traumatized and weak. To top it all off… some bastard had glued his mouth shut, making it hard to tell what shape his teeth were under the thick layer of whitish material. There’d also been a screw put through his hand holes, keeping him trapped in a praying position, with a locknut tightened so much on the screw head that his bones were cracked.

Luckily they had gotten the nut and screw off of him pretty easily. The glue, though. It had been on the poor thing so long that it’d _cured_. Which explained why the bitty was so weak. He couldn’t eat.

Pierce took a sip of his coffee and sighed. The more humane methods just hadn’t worked. It was a damn strong glue. Of course, vet offices had to deal with their charges being exposed to glue often, but this stuff was tough and on bone and in between bitty teeth – nothing like just shaving the animal to get the majority off and soaking in warm baths for the skin to release over time. Pierce had tried a few things but he couldn’t in good conscience use acetone or a stronger solvent on a bitty’s face unless he had no other options. 

He sort of _was_ out of options though. The other two vets he’d called suggested sandpaper and pulling the teeth just to save the bitty fast, but Pierce hated the idea of doing that too.

This bitty desperately needed to eat, and he couldn’t just absorb food like a Sans type without opening his mouth. The only option he had without getting the glue off fast was drilling a small hole in it and through a few teeth just to feed the poor thing through a tube until a better option came up. Again, he hated to permanently damage the bitty, but he was out of options.

Unless…

He knew it was late, but…

Pierce got his cell out and selected his neighbor. Maybe Rita would know what to do. She did a lot of crafting and might know a way to get this stuff off.

* * *

Havoc startled, took a shortcut to the floor, then bolted under Rita’s bed the instant the human’s phone rang. 

She hadn’t caught him sleeping in her bed yet and he didn’t intend to _let_ her. Not that he thought he was doing anything wrong. He was _allowed_ in here. Hell, he was allowed everywhere but OUT. It was just cause he had no other options, damn it! It’d been so long since he had a full charge that once he was used to it he felt weird being less than 100% every morning. He wasn’t getting enough soul time when they were watching tv and shit. That… that was it.

He didn’t WANT to sleep in her damn bed and sure as hell didn’t want her to **know** he was sleeping there either.

Havoc listened as she answered the call and sat up.

“Pierce? It’s almost midnight, what’s going on?”

Havoc edged closer to the side to see if he could hear the conversation better. Something about…

“What kind of sadistic psychopath glues a bitty’s mouth shut!?” Rita abruptly sat up, clearly pissed. 

Havoc could feel it through the residual connection from his nap on her back since he was still so close. She didn’t seem to know what it was like for them to live on the streets. Havoc wasn’t at all surprised to hear it, but he didn’t like it. That poor bastard.

“Yeah, I have something in the workshop that’ll dissolve it. It’s safe enough that you can put it on skin for short periods, so bone shouldn’t be a problem. I’ll drive it over now, just promise me one thing.” She paused while he garbled at her. “If I get there and see him in that seahorse suit I will kill you.”

Havoc covered his mouth to hide his chuckling while she hung up the phone and started getting dressed, then abruptly turned to face the underside of the bed, red-faced and kind of annoyed she didn’t think to check if he was in there before she started taking her clothes off. He still had no idea if she cared about that – some humans treated bitties like nothing more than talking cats and didn’t care, and others got as mad as they would if they caught a stranger peering in their window.

She walked into the kitchen and knocked on-

SHIT!

Havoc bolted back to his room, shortcutting three times to get there from the door-to-door alignment of the bedrooms and only appearing behind or under furniture so she wouldn’t catch him. Thankfully his room was dark and the kitchen light was on, so she couldn’t have seen him scramble to get in his bed fast.

“Havoc? Are you awake bud?”

He groaned moodily. “wadda'ya' want?”

“I’m going out for a few hours, but I’ll bring you back some good coffee, ok?”

“why do ya keep wakin’ me up every time ya leave at night? i ain't your damn babysitter, human.”

Rita laughed a little. “It’s just polite to let people that live with you know when you’re gone, so they don’t worry.”

Havoc swallowed at the word ‘people’. She didn’t really think that, damn it. It was a trick. Didn’t matter what she fucking said, he wasn’t people and never had been.

“whatever, better be damn good coffee.”

“Sleep well, sorry I woke you up.”

 _“then why’dja do it!?”_ he snarled and lay there until she left. The click of the door locking felt insulting. Still trapped. Ugh.

While she was gone Havoc considers continuing to try and break out, or break something, or try to stain the carpet again, but…

Ultimately, he realizes she’ll probably be tired after another bitty rescue late at night. Pierce should be able to solve his own damn problems without calling Havoc’s human to bail him out just because she had better tools than he did. He should get his own damn tools if he needs ‘em that often. 

Besides, Havoc wanted that coffee and didn’t want her pissed at him when she came back. Just because she never took food away from him before didn’t mean she’d be nice when she was cranky. So, he just went to lay back down.

In her bed, where it was still warm.

Stupid human. 

He _didn’t_ like her. 

He DIDN’T. 

She was just too **stupid** to see how bad he was. He was used to being locked in a cage and not being fed or getting hit for the way he acted. He couldn’t stop himself most times, the fucking humans just made him so mad all the damn time that they deserved it! And he couldn’t stop himself from biting either, it was a damned reflex, he could only control how hard he did it. Sometimes. 

If they surprised him he always broke skin, which made NOT hurting the idiots kind of difficult. No wonder that bitty she’d gone to rescue had it’s mouth glued shut – Havoc had been pretty used to tape and muzzles before he finally got out. It was a Fell, like him, if it’d been glued like that. The only reason for gluing a bitty’s mouth shut besides biting was puns and most sans types didn’t have a mouth that would open anyway. Most Papyrus types had flat teeth, too.

Maybe miss bleeding-heart glutton-for-punishment would realize how dumb she really was when THAT bitty didn’t have the same biting policy for her that Havoc did.

Havoc curled up in her blanket and grumbled unhappily, the soft fabric of his black pajama set with red and yellow hazard signs all over it compounding the residual warmth she’d left behind into a comfortable cocoon feeling. 

Rita… _didn’t_ surprise him, though. Not when she was going to touch him at least. She _always_ did that offer-hand-and-wait thing. He did bite her, just as much as he bit any other stupid human that dared to touch him, but like… warning bites. She didn’t deserve _real_ bites. Not after saving him like that. Not yet anyway. She didn’t seem to mind when he did either, even if it left little dents in her skin where his teeth had been.

He took a deep, lazy breath and looked up at the tv on her dresser. He could get the remote and watch something. He could go back to his room and take a bath in the sink. He could keep hacking at the frequently repaired sealer on the windows or around the pipes. Hell, he could go to the living room and play the video games if he wanted. There was a lot of stuff to do here that he couldn’t do in a cage or outside. He knew either would happen sooner or later when she got tired of him making such a mess all the time.

He _ought_ to be up destroying things to make the human let him outside before the cage happened since she wasn’t here to stop him but-

It was warm, he was tired, there was a full bottle of mustard in _his_ fridge in _his_ room to put on his breakfast that he _knew_ he would get and maybe he didn’t fucking want to leave right now. Maybe in a year or two when she got tired of him and started smacking him around. Right now, Havoc just… he was _tired_. And he didn’t exactly need to be afraid of what she’d do to him _yet_. And it was still fucking cold outside with snow he’d have to damn well tunnel through to get back to his alley anyway. 

The human-proof safe hole behind the pizza place could wait while he took advantage of a persistent moron trying to tame him. She’d give up on him eventually. Every human always did. So didn’t that mean that all this effort he was going through didn’t really matter anyway, in the long run? If she’d get tired of him by herself, why bother working so hard? He might be able to relax for a little while and take long naps without wondering where his next meal was coming from.

Until Rita fucked up.

Then BEWARE, human.

So, he closed his eyes and went to sleep.

He didn’t even notice he was purring lightly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the shorter chapter this time, it just felt like a good stopping point. Next one will be pretty long while we get our new problem child under control.


	5. Home Again

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The start of the school year and trying to figure out the family’s computer(s) and remote connection situation caused a significant delay. Apologies. How many people missed that Rita had parakeets in chapter two!? I meant it as a blink-and-you'll-miss-it detail, and here they are!

Havoc woke up an hour or so after Rita left because some asshole’s car alarm went off and they took their sweet time getting up to turn it off. He knew there was nothing he could do about it and he groaned and hid under the pillow and covered his head with his arms and swore and swore and swore and swore. Eventually he gave up and decided to do something productive. 

Even if he didn’t want to go through the effort of making terrible messes, there was ONE thing he could think of that might get Rita sufficiently mad to be entertaining without getting kicked out… maybe.

Havoc very carefully climbed the stools to the kitchen breakfast bar, where Rita kept one of her most prized things. Using a shortcut just seemed to startle them, so he made sure he made noise while he was climbing so they’d know he was coming. It was nighttime and the thing was covered. At least the shifting behind the black material let him know they’d heard him and wouldn’t be too surprised.

She’d had Pierce babysit the things until she was relatively sure Havoc wouldn’t panic when he saw the cage. It was only a few days ago she’d brought them back in and very firmly told the bitty he was under no circumstances allowed inside it or allowed to let the things out, and if he hurt them in any way he was going to suffer some serious consequences that may or may not involve a time-out princess dress complete with wig and tiara. 

Havoc was ok with that. He had a workaround on the rules.

He sat himself next to the cage and slowly pulled the cover off so they had enough light to see by, and see him. He knew how the predator/prey relationship worked for certain and avoided looking at them directly. He put his hand in between the bars slowly, waiting until the sleepy birds decided he wasn’t a threat to start talking. “hey, ya chirpy bastards.”

“I’m a baby bird,” one said, then chirped. 

The other said, “Good bird. Baby bird.”

Havoc smiled like a shark.

* * *

Rita stood outside the vet’s office in the snow, texting him to let him know she was there. It was another icky night, Michigan near the lakes and all, and at this rate she’d be lucky if she could get home before the plows went through around 4 or 5 am. The office had closed hours ago. Pierce had to come and let her in because it was all locked up aside from the back, where he was looking after the poor bitty on his own time.

He gave her a tired smile while he unlocked the door and let her in, then gave her a surprised hug when she handed him coffee that he hadn’t asked for that she’d got on the way here.

“You are literally a lifesaver,” he said. “I’m sorry for bothering you so late.”

Rita laughed. “We just have a habit of late-night rescues. I brought three different solvents, one ought to work. Hopefully the weakest. They’re all workshop-grade, not stuff you really get in normal stores, but at least they don’t smell horrible.”

Pierce stopped in front of the door to the back, speaking quietly. “I’ll have to sedate him. He’s not fast enough to be an issue but there’s a real possibility he could hurt himself trying to get away from us. We _can’t_ let him jump out of the kennel – the fall would dust him. I need you to guard one side of the door while I take the other.”

“Wait, are you just going to grab the poor thing and gas him without even a warning?” Rita scowled. “I don’t think so. He’s not a cat-”

Pierce pinched the bridge of his nose. “We _don’t have **time**_ to be nice, Rita” he tried to press urgently. “I’ve tried talking and explaining – he won’t have it. I can’t really blame him for not trusting anyone-”

“You’re not making that any better for him treating him like an animal that can’t understand what’s going on or communicate,” she said. 

“I _want to_ earn some trust, but he has to **_live_** long enough for me to do that first,” he said. “Even hospitals for humans do the same thing. Preserve life first – reason later. I can’t talk to a _pile of **dust**_ or a corpse and neither can you.”

“Fuck,” she muttered unhappily. “He’s that bad?”

“At this point I’m worried the stress alone might kill him, but it’s our only option unless I’m willing to drill through the teeth of a sentient being with no pain medicine and force-feed them through a tube.” Pierce said. “You can’t exactly give a skeleton an IV and he definitely can’t swallow anything like this, so inhaling it is all I’ve got.”

Rita steeled herself and nodded that he could open the door.

_*clk-clk-clk-clk-clk-clk-clk-clk-clk*_

The noise confused her for a moment. It wasn’t until she got to the barred door of the kennel that it clicked into place that she was hearing bones rattling against themselves and a metal kennel wall. The bitty was naked, huddled into itself like a traumatized human might, and had his face buried in the corner so he couldn’t see anything outside his little area of moderate safety. His hands… had cracks and holes in them and were latched around the back of his neck as if he was protecting it. 

Aside from that, and the glue she’d come here to remove, Rita didn’t know anything – but she was instantly furious at a person or persons she had never and likely would never meet. Somehow seeing a bitty that physically looked more adult-shaped than Havoc’s cute pudgy form made the horror of this bitty’s treatment worse for her. 

Maybe it was projecting her human perspective onto tiny monsters that might not have the same way of seeing things. But seeing a kid-shaped being act scared when it wasn’t necessary felt awful, to be sure, but that made some instinct of hers go into protective mode so she could prove she could be trusted. It was possible to help a scared kid feel better and help teach them to trust again. Seeing an _adult-shaped_ being too traumatized to trust set off frantic alarm-bells in her human brain because that sort of trauma might not be something she could fix.

Rita had to take a moment to remind herself this wasn’t a human, Havoc was an adult too, and she’d already helped him so this would be OK too if they could just get this guy fixed and fed.

She looked to Pierce and he motioned for her to be ready while he turned the valve on the gas.

Apparently Pierce was really just going to put the muzzle cover in the corner and trap the bitty there until it fell asleep, and Rita hated that he was probably right and they currently had no other options if they were going to save him. She did as she’d been told, bracing herself to catch a fleeing bitty. Thankfully it wasn’t necessary as the poor thing just curled up as tight as it could and stayed right there once he realized Pierce was opening the kennel door. He fell asleep fast and Pierce wrapped him in the towel that was already in there.

“How long do you think it’ll take?” he asked. “That should keep him out for fifteen minutes and I don’t want to use any more.”

Rita got out the weaker of the two solvents and started applying it gently to the thick glue on the bitty’s face. “That should be plenty. This stuff works fast.”

As she worked the two remained silent. Pierce watched the bitty carefully for any sign of waking, and Rita took layer by layer of glue off as the solvent did its magic. It was going to be really damn hard to earn the bitty’s trust after this and she already knew most people weren’t that patient and Pierce couldn’t take a bitty because he worried his sugar gliders might terrorize it, or visa-versa. She wasn’t sure how Havoc would react to another bitty, so she had the same problem… except that she could talk to and reason with Havoc. 

It was too early to think of that, though. First, they had to make sure this guy would survive long enough to get adopted, then she’d worry about it. For now she continued gently applying the solvent, waiting for the glue to turn to goo, wiping that layer off, and doing it again until she could see bare teeth. And he DID have teeth behind his strange flat mouth that could close completely like those eye sockets did. How bone could do that she had no idea, but they were literally magic after all.

Only a few seconds later the solvent made it through the slight gap in his teeth enough to loosen the glue on the inside. With gentle pressure Pierce pried the skeleton’s flat lipless mouth open and held his chin down so Rita could pick out the pieces of leftover glue from the back of his teeth with tweezers. It was weird looking inside an empty skull, though this bitty’s head was far more like a bone version of a face than Havoc’s, especially with the lip-like mouth covering his teeth.

“No sharp teeth,” she said. “He’s not a Fell.”

“Thank god,” the man sighed in relief the instant they were done. 

“They’ve got a lot to do,” Rita said. “I prefer taking care of myself. Besides, after dealing with Havoc I’m convinced anyone that gets bit by a bitty is either a dumbass that couldn’t be patient or damn well deserved it.”

He huffed a laugh and handed her the bundle of bones while he quickly mixed something that smelled like malt and got it into a syringe. “You might have a point there. Hold him for a bit so I can get this in his mouth.”

“Sure. Won’t he choke? He’s still out.”

“This is monster food, it’ll dissolve into magic the instant it’s in his mouth. It’s actually good that he’s a skeleton, because other types of bitties can choke like that, but he won’t as long as I feed him slow enough.” 

Pierce carefully pried the bitty’s mouth open and slowly depressed the end of the syringe, watching for any spillover. Rita could clearly see that Pierce was right. What liquid went into the bitty’s mouth seemed to just disappear rather than drip through. That made sense because there didn’t seem to be a hole in his head for it to go down, other into his spine, which didn’t go to a stomach anyway. When the whole thing was empty the man sat back and took a deep, exhausted breath.

Rita could very much feel his relief in the air around him. She couldn’t blame him. “Think he’ll make it?”

“If he’ll eat for me, yes. I can’t tell how much he can handle right now, but I’ll just let him have as much as he wants once he’s awake.”

“What’ll happen after that?”

“I could contact a shelter, but I’ve seen you look at a bitty like that before” he said. 

Rita held the wrapped skeleton to her like a baby and nodded. “Yup. Out of curiosity, why is he naked?”

“He was when they brought him in. Every time I touched him he’d flip out. I was saving the gas for when I had no other choice, and I didn’t want to stress him out too much.” Pierce picked up the cooling coffee she’d brought him and downed it all in one go. “So we should fix that now while we have the chance.”

Rita handed the bitty back and watched while Pierce quickly, with practiced speed and care, washed the bitty in the sink and put him in a new towel. He then handed her the bitty again and went to get something from a box. 

He came back with a very suspicious grin.

Rita spotted the damn seahorse suit and held the bitty away from him, using herself as a shield. “Don’t you fucking _dare_.”

“It’s the only thing we have left. Stores are closed.”

“I don’t believe you. Show me where you got it. That box on the fridge, right?”

Pierce took a step forward, brandishing the pink monstrosity like a can of pepper spray.

“That’s not even his size, he’s too tall for it!” she argued, backing away.

“Havoc was practically swimming in it, remember? It’s just the right size for a Gaster type.”

“I will **destroy** you after I destroy that **suit** ,” she hissed. “ _Show me the box._ ”

“Give me the bitty,” he retorted.

“ ** _Never!_** ”

* * *

Three days later, Rita managed to plead with one of the other vets who worked at Pierce’s clinic to sneak the suit out for her in exchange for ten more plain bitty outfits she’d brought to donate for the box. She promptly brought it to Havoc and watched him gleefully turn it into confetti, which she left on Pierce’s doorstep complete with a headstone she and Havoc had made which read: ‘Rest In Pieces – stupid fucking torture suit’. 

She heard Pierce laugh in the hallway through her door when he found it later.

Havoc snorted and continued drawing the floorplan for his house, which Rita had promised to start as soon as he was done. She’d told him about the Gaster bitty and that she intended to bring him in too. He seemed ok with it as long as it wasn’t a Boss or a hyperactive Baby Blue because either of them would have just rubbed him the wrong way.

“Well, when your house is built we’ll just make sure he knows that’s your space.”

Havoc stared at the floor for a moment before he grumbled, “better fer bitties ta’ have some group areas ta’ share, even inna’ cage. s’why some places made it illegal to keep ‘em alone. if we can’t sleep wit’ humans, we sleep inna’ bunch together.”

Rita hummed while she thought. “Like your own dorms and a common room in one building, with sleeping space in it.”

‘somethin’ like it. jus’ my own room’d be fine.” Havoc crumpled the fiftieth graph paper in a row and kicked the pad toward Rita instead. 

He’d been trying to come up with a house plan he liked, but every time he’d draw basically the same house with slight variations and inevitably hate it. He’d gotten really uncomfortable when she showed him the 3-d model in the computer and couldn’t, or wouldn’t, tell her why.

She drew up six plans and let him pick his favorite, then bribed him with mustard until he told her any changes that he wanted made, what colors he wanted what rooms, and other things he had kept to himself when they’d been doing up the actual bitty room and designing his bed and blankets. Why he seemed to hold back when something was for him, Rita hated to speculate, but hopefully, he’d learn to trust her better soon.

* * *

It’d taken a full week and a half to get the Gaster in good condition again, during which time Rita had managed to get the bitty house done with Havoc’s suggestions in mind to the best of her ability in between work and visiting the Gaster in the office. He would refuse to be touched and the stronger he got the harder he was to catch. If it wasn’t for the fact that he seemed interested in her when she came to visit a few times, Pierce would have deemed him unadoptable and sent him to an adoption center for help. Rita wouldn’t have it and called the center for advice, which she wrote down meticulously. Apparently, they appreciated it when people tried to take care of their own bitties rather than sending them back for the slightest problem and she had made a few friends with her dogged insistence that she would adopt him no matter what and just needed guidance.

The trip home was supposed to be a calm experience. So, Rita resisted her usual urge to turn on music while she drove.

The Gaster was clacking again, bony body pressed into the furthest possible corner of his plastic prison from her. Rita suspected he might have been sedated again just before she arrived to collect him and it was starting to wear off. Pierce had given her some clear liquid to mix in his water or food twice a day if he got too agitated. 

After having been on antianxiety meds herself for about a year after her divorce it pained Rita to know her new bitty was essentially in need of the same thing after what he had been through. Maybe he’d talk to her about it after she knew enough sign language and he felt more comfortable with her. Were there therapists for bitties? She’d damn well look, or at least see if a human therapist would be able to work with him if necessary. It’d be hard to find one that knew signs, though.

He’d been pretty calm when Pierce had put him in the carrier for her, even placidly allowing the man to help change his clothes into the black slacks and grey turtleneck she’d brought for him. She couldn’t afford his shoes just yet – bitty shoes and gloves along with the defining items each type preferred like their trademark jackets, hoodies, or scarfs, seemed to be the most expensive things – but he did have some basic house slippers and all of the cloth somewhat muffled his bones rattling while he shook. Rita had kept his clothes basic since they still didn’t know exactly what type he was aside from being solid bone and not a Fell since he didn’t have razor-sharp teeth and it didn’t look like they’d been filed down.

At least one thing was clear: he could both hear and understand her. It was what had interested him in her in the first place. She didn’t open the kennel, she didn’t touch him, she just sat by the closed door in front of him and talked, and occasionally brought him gifts that she would slip through the bars after warning him politely each time. He’d never tried to communicate back, but he was paying attention so that was a good sign.

Though, she didn’t have many options for communicating right now from his end. It was one of the first things Pierce told her about Gasters. No Human could understand him if he spoke aloud. It was, as far as she had learned, a Skeleton thing; only Skeletons understood Gasters when they spoke. Even other types of bitties couldn’t make heads or tails of the Gasters’ spoken language. She felt lucky to have Havoc around, though she wondered if he’d deliberately mistranslate just to mess with her before she knew enough signs to call him on his bullshit.

As she had been doing since arriving to pick him up, she spoke clearly and softly to reassure him and let him know what was going on. The times she had gone to visit him at the vet’s had gone well according to Pierce, in that he hadn’t tried to bite or scratch her when she was near the kennel bars. There seemed to be two default settings to a bitty’s behavior after trauma as far as a vet was concerned and they seemed to be a) I’m scared and I won’t bite or b) I’m scared and I WILL bite. He had, however, begun scratching his own bones or pulling on his blank eye socket if he got too nervous, which was usually when he perceived a hand or object moving in his direction with the intent to touch him whatsoever.

Rita stopped the car at home and turned it off, listening to the tense silence next to her for a bit before unbuckling her seat belt. “We’re home, so I’m going to carry you inside now. It’s safer for you to be inside the carrier, ok?”

He didn’t answer, but she hadn’t expected him to. When he had talked in his sleep during one of her visits it had sounded to her like garbled synth or something, reminding her vaguely of the noises Pokemon made in the oldest games. When she got into the apartment Rita took the carrier straight to the bitty room, set it down gently on the carpet, and motioned for Havoc to come to her.

His red eye lights darted from her to the carrier and back before he shook his head and backed up with a sinister growl. The Gaster reacted to the growl by making garbled distressed noises which made Havoc stop, frown, and look back at the carrier.

Rita was only confused for a second before she got it. “I’m not going to put you in the carrier, Havoc, promise. I just want to give our new housemate a little while to calm down before we try to talk to him.”

“w-wattev’r,” Havoc said and darted past her and out the door to the living room. Just being near the carrier made him anxious, she’d forgotten that in her hurry to get the new bitty settled. She’d apologize later with a steak or something, but she hadn’t missed that he seemed a little sheepish assuming the carrier was for him after all the trust she’d worked to build.

Rita followed. She’d talked to Havoc a lot about the new bitty and he seemed apathetic at best despite his body language letting her know he was concerned about it, and anxious. He was waiting for her on the couch and she sat next to him and tried her best to relax.

“The first night is going to be strange,” she said to him. “I couldn’t narrow down his type enough to know exactly what to do. Like you, some bitty types would be deeply insulted by being caged, but others would appreciate the security of their own private area that **is** locked to keep possible threats out.” She pointed and smiled at him. “Like _you_ , ya’ little hell beast.”

“heh hehehehehe…” he grinned and scratched his chin, clearly smug about it.

“All I can do right now is let him chill for a while and try to ask which one he wants but-“

“ya’ can’t talk ta ‘im,” Havoc finished. “n’ ya’ think i wanna be yer damn translator? why didn’cha’ practice signs with me n’stead’a usin’ yer computer?”

“ ** _Hell_** no, you’d teach me the wrong things on purpose.”

He laughed wryly. “damn. woulda’ been funny. guess ya’ got me figured out.”

“That sound he made after you growled – did he actually say anything?” she asked.

“jus’ that it wasn’ his damn fault a dumbass human put ‘im in my turf.”

“That makes sense. But you two are sharing that room now, so be nice. I mean it,” she pointed at him.

“aint’cha’ gonna sleep with the cage in yer bed tonight?”

Rita stretched and looked at the doorway where she could still hear some clacking and weird, Gaster-type mumbling. “I guess I better. But I’ll put him in your room tomorrow morning and take the door off. He can keep the carrier as a safe space if he wants it, but I don’t want him locked up. Can you please not go inside it unless he says you can first?”

“ya’ don’t gotta worry ‘bout it. no way in hell am I ever goin’ in that thing without takin’ somma’ yer fingers with me.”

“Your carrier is car-only and just for safety. Gaster’s carrier is exclusively for him, we just need to figure out how he prefers to use it.”

“…tch. thanks.” Havoc looked down and mumbled, “sorry fer growlin’ at’cha’.”

“Sorry for not explaining that before I brought a carrier in the house after promising I wouldn’t. It was my fault.”

Rita looked at Havoc with an apologetic smile and offered her hand. He grumbled but reached out and lightly punched her palm before shortcutting to the floor. It was the closest thing to a handshake she’d ever get, she was sure.

While she got dinner ready for them both, Havoc sulked under the couch and wondered why it bothered him so much every time she took responsibility for his bad behavior. He knew she went out to get the other bitty. He knew she was bringing him back with her. Why the hell did he think the carrier was for him? His human had always kept her word except when she broke it by accident and she just went and apologized to him when HE was the dumbass that didn’t trust her.

No wonder everyone always got rid of him eventually.

Havoc listened to Rita cooking and came out to eat when she was done, but he must’ve been a bad actor since she asked him what was wrong twice and just kept talking to him even though he wouldn’t answer much. He wasn’t being replaced, she wasn’t mad he growled, She’d gladly make him his own separate house if he wanted and he didn’t have to share, just all the same shit he already knew.

_*No, dumbass. You’re not a bad human, I’m a bad bitty.*_

Eventually she gave up and let him be mad for a while. While she was washing the dishes, Havoc went to the room he now shared with a newcomer and sat by the wire door until his staring got the other’s attention. 

* * *

Gaster had long since stopped shaking as he listened intently to the human and her bitty talking in the living room while they ate. If he was already causing problems between them merely by existing here then his long-term viability as a satisfactory companion were terminally low. As much as he appreciated this woman’s manner of handling him like an intelligent being, which he certainly was _thank you very much_ , their interaction currently was not encouraging.

The smell of her cooking made him nauseous after Dr. Harrison had once again overfed him that sickly sweet concoction just before he was delivered to his new home. Thank the stars she didn’t try to give him any of her cooking when he would have been unable to eat it. Such terrible manners would undoubtedly leave her with a sour first impression of him on his first night here. It had already been everything he could do not to vomit in the carrier on the way as he was both overfull and rather… apprehensive after his previous experience with human companionship. He was ten years old, had been adopted several times, and very lucky to not be dust after some of those experiences. She had been kind enough at the vet’s office when she wanted to take him home, but now he had no idea what to expect. Many humans were completely different people when they were not being seen and judged by society. In the comfort of their own homes, they often behaved very differently. 

Escape was generally how he dealt with his homes turning strange but…

If what Dr. Harrison had said of this Rita woman was any indication, Gaster would not be leaving anytime soon. If an Edgy determined to escape had failed to do so and she really was as experienced a contractor as he heard tell, there really was not much that Gaster could do. Edgies and Sans types in general were often underestimated in terms of their intelligence. They had the makings of scientists themselves if they weren’t so terminally lazy. 

So… trapped. In a manner of speaking. He had already stood near the carrier door and seen what he could of the dark room – and the bitty house that took up a large portion of the floor. He wondered if the Edgy – Havoc, if he was correct – would allow him access. It certainly wouldn’t be the first time an extant bitty had pulled rank on him to keep all of the best things for themselves. DAMN, but he hated Grimby bitties. Fell types in general were moody and controlling. At least this one probably wouldn’t burn him if he tried to get his fair share of food.

Probably.

If it wasn’t the humans it was the other bitties.

When the talking ceased he scrambled back to his corner and waited to see if she was coming back for him. Instead the sound of running water and dishes clanking eased his nerves for the time being. Sleep sounded heavenly, at least until his body absorbed more of the food and he was less actively uncomfortable. So he lay down and hoped that, at the very least, she would leave him be for the night if he was asleep when she came back.

The feeling of being watched roused him from a light doze and his head snapped up to see the Edgy sitting by the door and staring.

“din’t mean ta growl at’cha earlier.”

That was unexpected. If the human had asked him to apologize, how would she have been able to confirm it, as they couldn’t actively communicate at the moment? A Fell type of any kind apologizing for anything without being forced to was odd to say the least, at least given his own interaction with them. He considered thanking him for the statement, only for the other bitty to continue.

“jus’ don’ like cages. been in too many’ov’em, ya’ know? this’s our room an’ our house. you stay outta’ my shit n’ i’ll stay outta’ yers an’ we’ll be ok. i jus’ wanna’ know one thing before i do anythin’ else n’ya’ better be honest ‘bout it.”

Gaster eyed the Edgy suspiciously but nodded.

“ya’ ain’t a biter, are ya’? cuz **_I_** don’t even bite that human. ya’ must’a’ done something’ fer some jackass ta’ glue yer mouth shut. tell me what it was’n’ maybe i’ll ask rita ta let’cha’ outta’ there.”

Gaster strained to listen and see if this was some trick, but the dishes were still clanking, and he could hear the human’s steps as she shifted to put things on the drying rack. 

“I do not bite unless threatened,” he said in Wingdings, as his hands were still very sore. “And that was not why.”

“what was it, then?”

“I could not move my hands, and the human adolescents tormenting me found my spoken pleas… unsettling.”

The Edgy growled a little and shook his head. “so n’stead’a’ stoppin’ that shit or somethin’ smart like that, they just glued yer mouth shut so they didn’ have ta’ listen ta’ yer _screamin’_. fuckers.”

“Indeed.”

“what kinda’ gaster are ya’ anyway? yer workin’ eye’s so dim i can’t tell. ya’ sure as hell ain’t a fell or any o’ them weird goopy things.”

The Gaster didn’t answer. That was unsteady territory. The human, Rita, had adopted him without knowing his type or what his standard behaviors might be. What if he wasn’t what she wanted? It had happened before, even with a human that did know his type and thought they were prepared for it. 

“yer gonna’ make me guess? fuckin’ fine,” the Edgy continued, keeping his red-eyes locked on Gaster’s expression. “can’t be a swap, they’re supposed ta’ be hyper n’ shit like them damn baby blues, not n’less yer givin’ up on livin’ already.”

“No,” Gaster confirmed.

“n’ ya’ ain’t a star either from that fuckin’ weird-ass spacey line, they can fly an’ shit. ya’ got n’uff energy fer it now if ya wanted. n’ yer eye don’ look purple anyhow.” Havoc stood and clasped his little hands on the bars of the door and smiled menacingly. “c’mere n’ lemme see ya better.”

“I would very much rather not,” the Gaster snapped, scooting further back into his corner.

“heh. ya’ really wanna’ stay in the damn cage all night? rita’ll take this thing apart if i say ya’ want her ta’. don’t’cha’ wanna’ come out n’ **p l a y w I t h m e, p a l?** ”

“HAVOC! I can hear your mean voice from here, _quit it_!” the human shouted from her kitchen.

Gaster was shaking again, clutching at his shoulders and still lying down just the way that Grimby always made him when he wanted to step on the back of his neck to put him in his place. Damn, DAMN, _DAMN_ Fell types!

“you got it, sweetheart!” Havoc called back. “just talkin’ is all.”

“Why do I not believe you?” Rita said incredulously.

Those red eye lights focused once more on Gaster and, as much as a Sans type could, Havoc frowned. “yer’ damn jittery, ya’ know that? didn’t even do nothin’ ta’ ya’ yet n’ yer’ rattlin’ like a cherry fresh outta’ the factory. the fuck made’ja this **edgy**? heh.”

The Gaster didn’t answer and he pressed his face into the soft material at the bottom of the carrier, still laying in the position he’d been taught to whenever his last owner wasn’t looking and he was alone with the purple elemental. He wanted nothing more than to be anywhere but trapped in a home with yet another Fell type, with a human that didn’t know his type, and had the skills to keep anything larger than an ant from getting into or escaping her home. This was worse than starving in the snow. If only that human hadn’t caught him in his shed!

“look, pal, i ain’t gonna’ do nothin’ n’ the human… she’s alright. just tell me yer type so the she can get’cha all the cutesy shit she wants ta’. s’not like either of us can stop ‘er anyway.” 

…

“hey, asshole!”

…

“yer not asleep, yer still rattlin’!”

……..

‘fuckin’ fine! be a mopey ungrateful pile’o’ clacking bones inna’ damn cage fer fuckin’ ever if ya wanna’! i ain’t wastin’ my time talkin’ ta’ assholes who won’t talk back!”

The Edgy phased out of existence and reappeared in the doorway for just a moment with an irritated growl back at the carrier before he phased out again and was gone. Gaster was grateful the other bitty had left, but now he had a new worry: namely that he may have already made the aggressive thing mad enough to retaliate for his discourse at a later date. Either way, he did not want this human to know of his type until he had no other choice. 

They always hated it when he made a mess, even if he cleaned it up later.


	6. Day After Day

For those trying to come up with a mental image of the characters, I have no intention of providing more details than have already been provided for Pierce so everyone can imagine what he looks like. Pierce is a large, muscular male with tattoos, snakebite piercings, and very dark/black eyes. He also has a tendency to dress in a manner that makes it extremely obvious he’s a vet, or a pediatrician if you don’t pay too much attention to the patterns on his clothes, to keep people from judging him solely based on his build. He has had problems with this in the past and hates it when people are afraid of him.

Rita… looks like an early 30’s year old Audrey Ramirez from Disney’s Atlantis. She just does. Overalls and all. So now that you all know my third cartoon crush, let’s move on…

* * *

Day 1

Rita had spent a good while the previous night talking softly to the new bitty. She lay next to the carrier in her bed and he curled up in the furthest corner away from her and refused to so much as look at her. He was the absolute picture of uncertain misery waiting for the other shoe to drop now that there were no witnesses to see what she did with him. She gave up around 11pm and went to sleep. 

She assumed he had fallen asleep at some point as he was silent and still when she looked in on him the next morning. Unfortunately, the instant he heard her shift to get off the bed he jolted like a startled mouse and held the back of his neck again. At least he was facing her this time, even if he was carefully avoiding meeting her eyes directly.

“Good morning,” she said, as well as signing it.

He did glance at her eyes a moment, then, surprised.

“Does your neck hurt, bud?” He whipped his hands back down instantly and shook his head. “Hey, it’s ok. Sometimes we all develop little habits that just make us feel better. You can do that if it helps you.” 

Pierce had talked to her about the habit. He wasn’t harming himself, so it was best for now to just let him do it. She just needed to ask him if his neck hurt periodically to remind him that whatever he was doing that for wasn’t a problem anymore.

The Gaster gave her a look that was hard to read, but he did nod a little.

“Good and thank you for answering me. I appreciate it. I’m trying to learn sign language so we can talk better, but I’m only human so it might take me a while. In the meantime, I got you these to help if I’m having trouble understanding you.” Rita held up a bitty-sized pen and notebook. She didn’t know what design he’d like so settled on the black one to work with his current outfit. “No offense to Havoc, but if he translates too much for us, I doubt it’ll go very well.”

It was definitely a strange distorted sound, but he laughed a little. Rita smiled. “Yeah, I’m not practicing signs with him either. Would it be alright with you if I took the door off the carrier? I don’t want to keep you trapped. You should be free to roam the house.”

The Gaster shook his head.

“You’d like to stay locked in the carrier?”

Nod.

“Is it because you don’t like Havoc?” When he didn’t answer, Rita slipped the bitty pen and notebook between the carrier bars for him. 

He retrieved them quickly and wrote, then handed her the paper that said, _“Fell type bitties are violent.”_

Rita nodded. “I take it you know this from experience? And that’s why you want to stay locked in there. It’s to keep Havoc out.”

* * *

It took him a while, but he nodded slowly.

Perhaps this human would believe him. The human that had owned both him and the Grimby had never believed their precious cooking assistant was abusing the Gaster the instant they were unsupervised. He’d written it down as plainly as possible when the elemental was busy elsewhere, and the human had gotten angry with Gaster. By the human’s twisted logic, Gaster just wanted more attention, or wanted to be the only bitty in the house, etc… It couldn’t possibly be that their favorite wasn’t a good bitty.

They were otherwise a decent human, at least in that they normally left him alone unless he’d made a mess that they noticed before he could clean it up. Being ignored was fine by him. He didn’t trust the lumbering giants not to manhandle him, he hated being petted or grabbed, and they couldn’t understand a thing he said. Why anyone would even create a pet like him was beyond comprehension. 

He had read up on his own type, of course, and he already knew that gaining his trust would be difficult. What he didn’t understand was why even the more decent of his owners had never managed it. He’d had clean, well-maintained cages and things to play with and regular meals. Why wasn’t that enough? Why did he feel the need to escape to a possibly worse situation than he was already in?

And now this human woman who was more skilled at keeping bitties in than the Gaster was at getting out was already facing the fact that Gaster didn’t trust her favorite Fell bitty.

* * *

Rita watched while the Gaster mulled over how to answer her before he finally nodded.

“If he’s being mean to you, you can just tell me.” He seemed dubious of that, so she went with a different option since convincing him didn’t seem to be working. “How about a deal?”

The bitty tilted his head a little to let her know he was listening.

“I’ll let you into the bitty house and put a latch on the inside of your door so you can keep Havoc out if you’re that worried.” He seemed to perk up at that, actually moving to sit up. “Yeah, you have your own bedroom, den, and bathroom in there. So does Havoc. We designed the house so that the two of you could live there together. It was even Havoc’s suggestion, since bitties like to sleep near each other if they can’t sleep near their owner, right?”

He nodded hesitantly. She put the notebook back through for him and he wrote again. _“Thank you very much, Miss. Will you please install the latch before relocating me?”_

She laughed and handed it back to him after reading it. “Yeah, no problem. You’re welcome. Just call me Rita, bud. And hey, once you get settled in you can let me know what colors you want the walls to be and what things you want in your spaces so we can get you more personalized furniture and decorations and stuff. Right now there’s not a whole lot in there for you yet because I like to let my roommates decorate their own spaces.”

He wrote again. _“That is quite considerate. Thank you, Miss Rita.”_

“Great! Now before I go put that latch in, can you write down your name if you have one you like?”

He shook his head.

Rita sighed a little. “I promise I won’t use it to track down any of your previous owners or try to give you back. If you don’t have a name you like, that’s fine, we can find you a new one. If you have a name you like, or just want to pick your own, please tell me.”

The Gaster stared down at the notebook for a bit and even lifted his hand to write before simply shaking his head again. 

“Okay, I get it. We’ll come up with a name you like after we get to know each other better. While I’m gone, I have a job for you. Can you write down anything in particular you want? Clothes, colors you like or don’t like, and what things you like to eat? It’ll be a while before we can talk properly while I’m learning signs and I want you to be comfortable sooner rather than later.”

He nodded and signed his thanks just before she went to get the things from her shed. 

* * *

Rita sighed once she was outside, partly just to see the puff of breath in the frigid air but mostly to release tension. That honestly went better than she thought after what the poor guy had been through. Being able to openly communicate so soon had been unexpected. She’d have to call and let Pierce know before their date later next week.

The crunch of her boots in the snow was comfortable and familiar and soothed her nerves after the tense interaction with her new Gaster. It was only a little bit of progress. He was communicating, he wasn’t constantly rattling anymore, and he’d agreed to move into the house. The bitty shelter’s advice was really helping.

Day 1- Step 1: establish a safe space where he could feel secure without keeping him locked up like an animal. Check. They’d told her no locks, but she figured Gaster having control over his own lock was better than nothing.

Day 1 – Step 2: Move him only if you can get his permission first, so he didn’t feel forced into a new area. Check.

Hopefully, tomorrow would be as successful as today.

* * *

Aaaaaaand the lady was outside. Perfect.

Havoc tried talking to the skittish bastard again. He sat outside of the carrier door and knocked on the edge of it to get the other bitty’s attention. He ignored the full-body flinch and waved at him casually. At least he wasn’t rattling like yesterday.

“heard the bastard vet put’cha n’ that damn pink suit, too.”

 _“Ah. So, of course you have come to ridicule me for a situation I had no control over,”_ the Gaster droned in his strange voice.

“fuck no, i ain’t makin’ fun o’ ya’ fer that! shit, why’d i admit he did it ta’ me too if i was just gonna’ fuck wit’cha?” Seriously, what the fuck was this guy’s problem? Havoc was trying to be nice and he kept acting like Havoc was the asshole! Yeah, he’d been listening when Rita confirmed the Gaster didn’t like Havoc, but they already knew that. That’s what the damn talking was for – to fix it until they could at least tolerate one another.

 _“Then what is it you want, Havoc?”_ It was clear that the other bitty wasn’t interested in leaving the carrier and he remained tense and wary of the Edgy being near it.

Havoc pointed proudly to himself and grinned. The Gaster tensed and drew back a bit when he smiled. What the fuck? Was it the teeth he didn’t like? Did he know another Edgy or something? 

“did’ja know our human was the one that got rid’o it? she bribed ‘nother lady there ta’ sneak it out n’ i got to shred it!” He visibly let himself pout a little. “wouldn’t lemme eat any’a it, though.”

 _“It would have merely fallen through and into your ribcage.”_ Slight amusement. Good.

“woulda’ made me feel better at least. ya’ hated the fuckin’ thing too, right?”

_“I am convinced a vindictive human made it for a bitty to wear during some form of punishment.”_

“i know, right!? don’t piss off the lady by th’ way, she’s gotta’ _dress_ fer us if we do.”

The Gaster winced and groaned a little. Yeah, that’d get them both to be good. At least in front of the Human.

“so, yer movin’ ta the house, huh? not ta’ pry inta’ yer business r’ nothin’, jus’ tryin’ta look after the human s’ all.”

The other bitty took a slow breath, now aware Havoc had been listening. _“I meant no offense by my request.”_

Havoc snorted. “ya’ been through hell’n’ back n’ ya’ don’t gotta’ ‘xplain it ta’ me. look, ya’ don’t gotta’ trust me or rita. hell, don’t trust fuckin’ nobody _ever_. s’ the only reason i’m still alive. what ya’ do gotta’ do is trust yerself n’ if ya wanna’ have a lock, get a damn lock.”

The Gaster eyed him warily. _“What is the purpose of this conversation?”_

Havoc chuckled. Right to the point, eh? He could appreciate that. “we both gotta’ live here n’ it’d be a helluva’ lot easier if we can get along. i put rita through hell for weeks after i got here n’ she put up with it like a champ n’ never once hit me or locked me up r’ nothin’. she’s… a good human. ‘far’s i know anyhow. stands to reason ya’ just got damn lucky she decided ta’ keep ya’, same’s’ me.”

_“I see. Is this the part where you set the rules of our home and inform me of my place?”_

Havoc grunted. “dere’s the problem, innit’? ya’ had another edgy in yer home b’fore?”

_“A Grimby, if you must know.”_

Edgy winced. He’d met some of those fuckers before, back when he’d been in a shop. In general he liked Grimby’s. They tended to like him too, as long as he paid their weird favors for their services like cooking and shit. They called it a Tab. If they got mad, though? FUCK they were mean. Even the ones that were just in the store waiting to get adopted.

“ya’ poor bastard. sorry.”

The Gaster looked at him deeply with his one functioning eye. There it was, not nearly as good as a Sansy’s, but Gasters could READ people too, and this one was focusing on HIM right now. He let it happen. It went both ways if you were good enough, most Gaster’s couldn’t, and Edgy’s were damn good at it. 

They regarded each other for a long, tense moment. Gaster broke contact first and put his head down on the blanket, tired.

Havoc had to resist the urge to shudder after seeing what he had in the other bitty. FUCK. What the ever living hell was wrong with some people? They were about the same age and this guy, somehow, had Havoc beat in the pain department even if most of the Gaster’s was emotional and Havoc’s was the opposite. Seemed he gave up on people and left if they didn’t earn his trust, or broke it, or just didn’t care. Lots of humans had given him damn good reason to get the hell out of dodge. Rather than waiting too long and waiting for the pain to prove him wrong like a Sansy, this guy bailed the instant he smelled something fishy. Pre-emptive get-the-fuck-outta’-there.

Smart.

The downside was that he carried extra guilt for not giving some people the chance to prove him wrong, like it was _his_ fault he had bad feelings and shit. He even missed some of the humans he’d left behind, knowing he probably made them really upset when he left. Sometimes it wasn’t even the human that had him, but someone that lived with them or other bitties that was the problem.

The Gaster finally sat up straight and looked at him squarely. _“You have had quite the difficult life, my friend.”_

“likewise, ya’ wordy jackass,” he said with a smile. OK, counting tallies on hard lives and pain was not a good thing and was inherently unfair, but Havoc was sure he’d survive what the Gaster went through with less of his spirit than he had now, mostly believing _he_ was the asshole and not the humans. Fuck. Good thing he wasn’t the touchy-feely dependent type.

This stupid fucker actually _wanted_ a human. Not just any human, but the _right_ human, and he’d failed so many times he’d almost cracked.

“yer stronger than ya’ think ya’ are, n’ no mistake.”

_“What are your rules?”_

Havoc blinked and scratched his chin. “uhhh… we both live in da’ same house so… like i said b’fore? stay outta’ my shit n’ i’ll stay outta’ yers? whatever’s past the lock i mean. i might ask fer one too, jus’ ta’ keep it even. rita already got us a buncha’ boxes fer the fridge so’s we can label our own food. don’t bite ‘er. that’s a hard rule. aint’ budgin’ on dat one. ask first if ya’ wan’ any mustard? we’re good otherwise.”

The Gaster closed his eyes and seemed to think hard for a while. _“I **will** bite the human if she harms me.”_

“dat’s fair.” Havoc acknowledged. “i’d do it too. jus’ don’ bite ‘er without a good reason an’ it better be a fuckin’ _damn good reason_.”

 _“What do you intend to do if I break these rules?”_ The Gaster stared hard, reading again.

Havoc grinned cheekily. “ya’ll be a pretty pink princess fer a while, i’m sure, once i tell rita.”

The Gaster tilted his head curiously. _“You do not intend to retaliate yourself?”_

Havoc scratched his chin while he considered that. “eh… maybe if ya’ really piss me off, but i think i’ll have more fun watchin’ ya sittin’ inna’ corner inna’ dress. take a few pictures fer m’self just ta’ rub it in yer face later.”

 _“I do not believe you.”_ The Gaster stared at him in disgust, as if Havoc was lying.

*it’s really hard to earn his trust,* Havoc reminded himself, trying and failing to not be offended. *it actually aint’ his fault he’s a suspicious prick.*

Havoc grinned, knowing it was only a matter of time until he proved the moody bastard wrong. “good, i toldja’ not ta’ trust goddamn anyone, remember? s’just practical.”

* * *

The Gaster very much appreciated that the human didn’t touch him when it was time for him to move into the bitty house. She merely told him that she would move the carrier with him in it, then he could go into the house on his own. It was a nice change from the humans who wanted to carry him everywhere or force him to sit in their pockets as if he were an invalid or, worse, a mindless decoration. She even stayed long enough to watch him close the lock on his door to ensure Havoc didn’t bother him. From the window of his new quarters the Gaster saw Havoc behind the human’s back, grinning widely, give him a thumbs up.

At least he thought so. The other bitty was quite a ways away and Gaster didn’t have his…

Well…

If this human proved observant enough perhaps he could tolerate her.

Was the Fell bitty trying to intimidate him with those sharp teeth or simply smiling? Gaster couldn’t tell, and that worried him. He did not trust the human or the other bitty. Perhaps, though, he could let his guard down a little now that he had a safe area to himself. Safe in that he was relatively certain he would hear the human trying to break in if she wanted to get at him and bitties could not teleport through anything solid.

He expected her to leave him be now that he was in his pet enclosure, but no. While he looked around the fully functioning bathroom, electric lights with switches he could control, and located the charger cable coming through the back wall for his own tablet; she sat by the bitty house and worked on her laptop. He didn’t at all care for the warmth of her soul seeping in through the thin wood walls and imbuing him with her patient persistence whether he liked it or not. It made him feel awkward that she was willing to do that for him. The floor couldn’t have been comfortable on her back or hips, yet there she sat: stubbornly charging him whether he asked her to or not.

It was… unnervingly generous of her. Clearly she knew enough of his soul needs to keep him comfortable without having to be asked, as well as attentive enough to provide basic necessities… and more if he liked. The list he had given her was carefully done to ensure she had no clues as to his type. He would have to resist his impulses until certain she would accept him as he was.

He would have to take care not to let his guard down around this one. He hated generosity that was swiftly denied once it wasn’t swiftly rewarded with either compliance or disproportionate praise.

Unsure of what else to do, he merely started moving the meagre furnishings to his preferred arrangement and tried to stay calm when her shadow moved against the glass of his windows.

* * *

Rita spent the whole day by the house. Occasionally Havoc would sit near or on her and demand attention with play-bites. She did everything she could to assure him he was still going to get all the attention he wanted despite how much she needed to connect to their new housemate. From gentle petting that ended in bites the instant he decided he was done, to feeding him bits of her lunch covered in his yellow addiction, to letting him pick out a pair of expensive sneakers on a bitty clothes website on her phone. Havoc blew her off with a snide ‘whatever’ and flipped her off from the doorway right before lunch, after he’d spent several hours sleeping on her leg right next to the laptop.

The Gaster was eating. That was a definite good sign. He would actually eat at his table with the bitty-sized plates and utensils and wash his dishes afterward in the little sink and dry them and put them away like a tiny meticulous gentleman, which was adorable as all hell. 

He would also flinch, startle, or scuttle away from her general direction every time she moved toward the house. After lunch she concentrated on going through her daily routine without disturbing him and allowed him to merely exist in calm and security in the house. The only time she ever put her hands in the house was to put food, clean clothes, and little gifts inside – always in the shared area outside his locked door where he could get them when he wanted. Each time she only told him what she was doing, did it, and left. Hopefully this would establish a little bit of trust in what she said and did.

Havoc, for his part, had made sure he was visibly too far away to shortcut to the Gaster in one shot when the other bitty did retrieve the things to give him some ‘fuckin’ stubborn-assed space’, as he’d put it. Rita rewarded the Edgy with mustard- laden things like cheese or ham or devilled eggs every time, even though she had a suspicion that it was difficult for the Gaster to see Havoc from that far away given how long the other bitty would stare before finally moving to open his lock. Maybe he needed glasses? Some types did, but she still wasn’t sure which type he was yet.

Day 2

Rita placed her hands near the windows without touching the glass. She would only do this on the ones she thought the Gaster could see clearly and he was far enough away from to retreat away if it made him uncomfortable. She did nothing but hold hands there and speak to him if it seemed like he would listen while she read or worked, so he could judge for himself if she was a threat. He still scuttled away from her, still stared as if she might punch through the glass and grab him.

Havoc seemed to be judging what Rita was doing avidly, as if he is trying to gauge if she’s serious or just trying to put on a show. The bitty house was starting to get dirty-ish, even though Gaster was trying to keep it contained and to a minimum, but she didn’t want to clean it up just yet out of fear of scaring him too much. There was a small pile of worn clothes and wrappers near his locked door which she dared not collect without permission, and he seemed too nervous to ask it of her yet. To do that Rita would have to ask him to unlock his door…

For now, she left him be.

Day 3

Rita did everything she had the day before, in addition to putting her hands into the house in the common area and simply leaving them there for him to react to as he would.

The Gaster avoided her hands like the plague until one of them opened to reveal a treat (she wasn’t sure what type he was so it was a general bitty treat most Gasters seemed to like). He did not retrieve it, but stared at that hand a while. When he started to look suspiciously at her rather than scuttle away every time she moved, she would set the treats down, pull her hands out until he retrieved them, and put them back in with another. Rita would give him enough time to decide if he wanted the treat before time was up and he was certainly getting closer… but didn’t get close enough to grab him if she wanted to.

At the end of the day she left a little pile of treats by his door before she left.

Day 4

The treats were gone in the morning. Havoc swore (in more ways than one) he didn’t want “that shit” and hadn’t taken them.

That day she tried offering the Gaster food from her hand. She turned on a youtube video on her phone, headphones on, and waited for half an hour while he stared mistrustingly at the hand that held his breakfast before she withdrew it. He didn’t trust her, but at least he had some reassurance that she wouldn’t just snatch him up or shove her hand in his face if he didn’t want something. She left the food there anyway as a show of goodwill.

He ate at his table and washed his dishes and put them away again, and Havoc snorted that he was a “prissy fucker that ought to wear pink”. Rita gave him a cheeseburger and some mustard packets and told him to be nice.

Later that day the Gaster either had a panic attack or a nightmare: Rita couldn’t tell which, Havoc had come to get her while she was pouring resin onto a bundle of colored pencils for a project in the kitchen. When she got to the bitty house the Gaster was frantically scratching at his neck and wrists, flaking dust off them. She had no choice but to unlatch the roof and pull him out and wrap him tightly in a towel until he calmed down to stop him from hurting himself.

Eventually, he calmed and ate the chocolate coated coffee beans she offered, but only after she left and left him inside his rooms with Havoc on the other side of the window, where they proceeded to have a hurried sign language conversation that was too fast for her to process.

The Gaster hung his dirty clothes inside his windows like curtains with bone attacks for the rest of the day. Havoc seemed to be pouting about something, but wouldn’t tell her what, and even bribing him with mustard and extra video game time didn’t budge him on an explanation.

She gave him both anyway, and thanked him profusely for talking to Gaster through his troubles when she couldn’t.

That night before she went to bed the familiar stab of a gentle bite on her arm got her attention.

“he won’t tell me what the attack was about. didn’ know ya’ could open tha’ roof either. jus’ freaked him out a little when ya’ did it ‘s all.”

Rita swore and groaned into her pillow before facing the red-eyed bitty on her bed. “I forgot to tell him the house was made to do that.”

Havoc crossed his arms and pouted with his mouth and nose mostly covered by his zipped-up jacket. “i did too. it aint’ jus’ yer fault. told him so. hope he don’ stay freaked out fer long. ya’ were doin’ great getting’ ta’ him.”

“Tomorrow will be better, Havoc. We’ll make sure of it, ok?”

He slouched into her arm and fell asleep fast, muttering unhappily just before.

Day 5

Rita knew she had to clean the bitty house to avoid a health hazard.

Havoc shoved all of his substantial filth out onto the carpet and demanded she use a particular cleaner in his rooms because it smelled “less like somma’ tha’ intolerable shit than tha’ rest’o’ tha’ shit n’ yer’ cleanin’ shit’,” and she used the same stuff in Gaster’s area in the hopes that bitty’s just had scent issues she didn’t.

Gaster agreed to the cleaning, refused to leave his rooms for the carrier and would hide in the furthermost room from wherever she was cleaning and growl and snap his blunt teeth if she got too close to him. Otherwise, he looked somewhat embarrassed every time she cleaned up the neatly packed piles of normal stuff that happened daily for a bitty. She didn’t do anything else that day to avoid stressing him but put clean clothes in and new food and water like every other day.

He did, thankfully acknowledge that holding him yesterday had been necessary, and accepted her apology for the roof. While it definitely set her back in the trust department Rita was nonetheless satisfied with his progress.

Both she and Havoc had noticed he no longer smelled and examined his food to see if anything in it was drugged or contaminated.

Day 6

This was TREATDAY.

The bitty shelter had given her a lot of instructions and it was a given that all attempts at treats for the sake of earning trust needed to happen after a certain amount of trust had been established.

She had been told most Gasters loved coffee about as much as Sansy’s loved ketchup (Edgies not included) – so she left one thimbleful in the dollhouse for him to find. It disappeared quickly, and the washed and dried cup was placed outside his door.

Several hours later, Rita offered a bigger portion of steaming coffee in her hand for him to pick up. He snatched it up like he was terrified she’d snatch him up the same way and retreated to a different room before drinking it, but he _actually took something from her hand!_

Later she put a chocolate covered coffee bean in her hand. He didn’t take it, but she looked directly at him after 30 minutes of quiet hand time and placed it down anyway, as a thank you for being patient with her. She thanked him for being patient and hoped the point had been made.

“Gaster, I know the other day was really scary for you. I need you to know that I am NOT going to grab you unless absolutely necessary to help you, alright?” 

The bitty hesitated before signing a thanks and retreated back to his room with the bean.

DAY 7

The coffee bean was stripped of the chocolate and in his garbage pile.

…huh.

Gaster looked at her far more often now. 

When she tried to give him the brewed coffee again he just stared at her nervously instead of moving to the next area behind a wall. It was a step backwards from the day before. Rita tried placing the little cup inside a larger container in her hand that would have made it difficult for her to grab him in a hurry and he tentatively took the cup inside.

At a normal speed, rather than snatching it.

So she left him some chocolate and thanked him.

Day 8

“this is takin’ fer fuckin’ EVER.”

They were sitting on the couch playing Minecraft on the switch: Rita trying to build anything of substance in a hurry while Havoc repeatedly blew it up.

Rita reached out to scratch Havoc’s skull lightly. “It’s been a week. You tore up my house for two. Give him at least that long to start talking more.”

“it aint’ the talkin’ i’m worried about! it’s the skuttlin’ away from ya’ like yer gonna dust him firs’ chance ya’ get! aint’cha’ done enough ta' prove yer not a-“

Rita scooped up the Edgy (who immediately latched onto her thumb with his teeth and growled in admonition) and held him up to eye level.

“Havoc.”

Jaws full of finger, he demanded, “wha’?”

“People SUCK.”

He blinked at her and let go, laughed his weird cackling laugh. “ya’ don’ gotta’ tell me that!”

“I mean… sometimes they try to earn your trust before they start acting like bastards. It’s like a game for them to see how long they can keep you in their trap. Some people are very good at it. I can’t be mad at Gaster for taking his time. He’s just being safe.

Havoc gave her a look that seemed to be brighter in one eye and Rita had to resist the urge to shiver. “…an’ ya’ know that **h o w**?”

“I married one.”

“…fuckin’ hell, lady.” Havoc covered his eyes with his little hands and rubbed. “din’ peg ya’ fer that kind.”

Rita let out a hollow laugh. “That’s what my friends said. He was very good at acting perfect in public, and stopping his behavior right before he hit my limit. Then he apologized, earned my trust again over a few days or weeks depending… then went off on his rampages again. It’s a little hard to see that when you’re so close to it. I waited 3 years after seeing the problem before I finally left. When you get married at nineteen you’re still practically a kid. I guess I needed to do some growing up before I realized who the actual adult was in our relationship.”

“thank fuck ya’ didn’ have any kids.” The bitty’s eyes abruptly went black and he cringed back. “shit, i didn’ mean… fuck. sorry.”

Rita just smiled. “You’re right, though. I should’ve realized it then – the second I got pregnant and snuck out to get an abortion because I KNEW I wasn’t going to give that man the opportunity to treat a child the way he always treated me. He didn’t know I had something done right after to prevent it, because I wasn’t allowed to take birth control pills. He looked through all of my medicines often just to make sure.”

Havoc snorted and crossed his arms. “creepy ass bastard. s’prised he even wanted kids.”

Rita set Havoc down next to her and leaned back into the chair. “He didn’t.” When Havoc looked at her in confusion, she explained. “I wasn’t allowed to work. He had all the money, all the property except my hobby art stuff and the car he got me as a gift to convince me to marry him in the first place. That and my wedding ring. If we had a baby, and I misbehaved enough to get kicked out… who do you think would get custody? I’d never even had a job before. He just wanted a lock to put on his cage to keep me trapped, not a child.”

“how the hell’d’ja’ get away then?”

“First I asked the police department to find me help to start a hidden bank account and started selling my art instead of giving it to my friends. Not too long after that I called Nana. In just a few months I had enough to wait till he left for work, pack just the little I needed, leave the divorce papers on the table and run with a full trailer of what little I did own. Just outside of town I stopped and pawned my ring, traded my car for a different one, and the DMV got confirmation from the police department I could get a different license plate under a pseudonym until the divorce was final. I barely made it here with what cash I had, but here I am.”

“ok, ok… so if ya’ never had a job b’fore then howd’ja’ learn how ta’ do all… this!?” Havoc gestured widely to the apartment, that he knew she had built herself.

Rita laughed for real this time. It was a welcome reminder of who she was now. “Thanks! I really needed that.”

“the fuck?”

“Okay, okay. Sorry. Just… when your husband is both wealthy AND a cheapskate you learn really fast not to call repairmen or there’s hell to pay. So I got online and learned how to do most of it myself. The people at the hardware store were my friends for a while. That was 4 years of repairing and painting my own house. In this county as long as you have your work certified safe by an inspector before you close the walls up you can do things yourself. Halfway through the first unit I got my plumbing certification, and after that in the second apartment I got my electrical. The experience of having to wire the same damn wall four times is exhausting but well worth it for the inspector’s advice when you’re still taking night classes and working all day.”

Havoc stared at his hands in his lap for a while.

“Havoc?”

“i think i misjudged ya’, lady.”

Rita sat back up again. “What do you mean?”

Havoc growled lowly the way he did when he knew he did something stupid. “i thought yer nana was lettin’ ya’ run this place coz’ ya needed help, not cuz’ ya’ fuckin’ earned it.”

She sighed and put her hand on Havoc’s back, hopefully soothing them both. 

“She’s too much of a hard ass to give anyone anything for free. Thanks, though.”


	7. Revelation + Bitty Tales #1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, the reason the last chapter took so long and this one updated just a few days later is: I wrote them all at once and realized just how LONG they were as a single chapter. That and the nice break in progress between day 8 and day 9 made for a good stopping point for a chapter break.

Day 9

Rita noticed Havoc staring in through Gaster’s windows a lot, concentrating on something. She’d asked him what it was, but he told her to mind her own damn business. The day went the same as usual until around 4 p.m. when she’d promised to meet Pierce.

The day had finally come for their date after an emergency at work forced Pierce to reschedule the last one. Being adults who cared nothing for fancy stuff, they went to places they normally did and just hung out and chatted. At the bitty store they bought a few things for Havoc and the Gaster, at the pet store they got some supplies for Pierce’s sugar gliders and a few calcium stones for Havoc to maintain his evil little shark teeth with. The book store was next for whatever random entertainment they could find. Rita got coloring books and paint for the bitties to play with and hoped the Gaster would find colors that he liked for his walls and furniture soon, as all he asked for in his list was plain and simple.

After all that they went to get takeout and hung around in Pierce’s apartment while they ate. They hadn’t even gotten dinner from the same place: Rita got waffles and Pierce got Chinese. All around it was a great date; making progress into good friends territory while still keeping things casual. It was hours past dark when they got into talking about the various bitties they’d seen around town.

“The donut shop on West 5th has a Curly,” Rita said. “I only found out when I walked past the aquarium and the cheeky little shit was _swimming in it_ and popping out from behind the decorations to surprise people.”

Pierce chuckled. “I know the butcher a few streets down on Mason has a Horror Sans. They didn’t adopt him, he just sort of moved in one day. On the plus side, they no longer have a mouse problem. Soon as he got there he committed mass pesticide. They still have no idea how he got the knife. They didn’t even own one that small.”

After covering her mouth to avoid spitting out her waffle laughing, Rita swallowed and said, “I think my favorite is the venus fly trap one at the florist. They feed it live crickets and rats and stuff. They used to call him Shredder, but after he saw Little Shop of Horrors he _insists_ on being Audrey II.”

“I wouldn’t say that I have a favorite bitty. More like a rival. We kind of hate each other, but we’ve hated each other for so long it’s become a weird type of understanding,” Pierce said as he cleared the empty packaging and tossed it in the trash. “It’s kind of a long story, though.”

“If you have wine, I have time,” Rita smiled. “Havoc _probably_ isn’t terrorizing my mystery bitty too bad.”

“Your funeral,” he said, and got out a bottle and two glasses.

* * *

Bitty Tales #1 – HERALD THE MAGNIFICENT TWISTER

Fuck snow, Pierce thought as he opened the door. He’d been called into an out-of-the way clinic to help with a bitty’s eye because the vets there had less experience and those that did work here didn’t have the ability to pull free hours like he did even if they wanted to, and the police had brought the patient in after it became apparent he was in danger at his home.

“HUMAN! THIS IS THE VERY LAST TIME I WILL EXCUSE YOU FOR BEING LATE!”

Pierce sighed and muttered, “Hi, Twister.”

He turned to his left and met his least favorite bitty on the planet eye-to eye, as the Boss in black scrubs with flames on the hems and a skull and crossbones on the shirt was standing on the bookshelf for precisely that reason. Twister NEVER addressed Pierce from a position where his eyes were lower than the human’s when Pierce first arrived. Usually, he was higher than this and looking down at the human over his snooty little nose-hole.

This bitty was probably the source of Pierce’s general issue with Fell bitties. His name came from the fact that he’d been living as a squatter in this very vet’s office for several years and being a severe pain in the ass on par with a force of nature before finally being caught. He’d apparently been there before the practice had rented the property and decided the humans were intruding on HIS building. Little dude was FAST and an excellent strategist, meaning he had probably escaped from a bad situation, likely a fighting ring or at least training for it. If he hadn’t been caught off-guard while he was distracted petting a cat he’d still be making the staff truly believe the office was haunted.

After being caught, though, he refused to leave. For some reason, they just couldn’t keep the obnoxious little shit in a cage long enough to get him to an adoption center. Somehow, he always managed to get out. It might have been that his magic was far stronger than the average bitty and even containers designed specifically to resist it failed to keep him contained, it might have been his weird locksmith-level knowledge of picking his way out, it might have been that the place WAS haunted and the damned ghost kept letting him out. Either way: Twister wholeheartedly believed he owned the building and the vet’s office just happened to be in it.

This was Twister’s territory. He made damned sure they knew it, too. Chaos had ensued for weeks every time they managed to cage him, and he proceeded to wreak absolute havoc in direct proportion to how badly they’d pissed him off. Notably, though, he never did anything that would badly impact the animals or customers: he only targeted the specific people that caught him. And then, someone noticed him comforting the other bitties.

And he was **_good_** _at it_. From traumatized cherries to timid baby blues, papy’s too beaten down to raise their voice and lil’ bros that were aggressive just because they were scared; all of them seemed to keep calm around Twister. Pierce thought it must have something to do with his unusual amount of magic making his soul sing much louder than most bitties. No wonder he seemed to need very little soul time outside of soaking up the gratitude of willing animals. He must have been a genetic abnormality; a mild fell, perhaps? It was an odd thing that sometimes happened in all the breeds. For a Boss, ANY Boss, Twister was strangely polite about being an intolerable asshole.

Finally, the landlord and the staff managed to reach a compromise with him because they couldn’t get rid of Twister and they couldn’t afford to move locations. 

They HIRED him. He got a bitty house of his own in a small janitor’s closet they cleaned out to be his apartment, regular meals, flexible hours, a small allowance, and entertainment like some bitty-sized exercise equipment and a smartphone… in exchange for not being a deliberate menace and accepting the office and staff as companions here. For his part he got an honorary position among the staff as the primary bitty attendant and the right to pet and have soul time with any animal he wanted that would allow it.

He seemed to genuinely love helping hurt bitties recover and, Pierce had to admit, having a bitty communicate directly with those patients helped the bitties feel safer too. A bitty that was as respected as a veterinary assistant had CLOUT among the little things, and he made the bitties feel more secure about their bargaining options. And Twister took his job VERY seriously. Considering how many curable bitties he’d saved from being put down just because the owner wasn’t willing to pay for treatment, he deserved way more than he actually got paid. 

Personality-wise, though? He and Pierce loved to despise each other. It was a game at this point, and fun to play.

Pierce glared at the little menace and shut the door behind him to keep out the cold. “I’m-“ he checked his watch, “-seven minutes early. That’s not late.”

“YOU ARRIVED AT THE DESIGNATED MEETING POINT AFTER I DID, THEREFORE YOU ARE LATE!” the bitty snarled, pointing his witchy little clawed finger in accusation.

“You _live here_ , ya’ wingnut,” Pierce huffed. “How could I possibly beat you in a race to this specific bookshelf from _across town_?”

“PROPER PLANNING AND DEDICATION, WHICH YOU CLEARLY LACK!”

“And possibly a time machine,” the secretary laughed. He was new, Pierce noted, probably less than eighteen. “Give him a break, Dr. Harrison. The Magnificent Twister is just worried about his patient.”

Twister’s cheeks went pink and he looked down grumpily. “The Sansy Is Not Doing Well…”

Pierce went into serious mode. He offered a hand to Twister and the bitty stepped onto it immediately. Two doctors were talking now and Pierce took Twister to an empty examination room for the conversation. “Did he tell you what happened?”

“No. He Wants So Badly To Believe He Misremembers What Happened Rather Than Trust His Own Mind.” Twister’s red eye lights burned angrily. “He Had A Very Strong Bond With A Very Bad Human. She Trained Him Well. He Never Responded To The Terrible Things She Did To Him, Only Her Offspring.”

Pierce hated those people. Bitties, like humans, were intelligent and just as prone to gaslighting and defending their abusers if it was done right. He'd heard a little of the case, but not a lot. “What happened to the owner and her kids?”

“As Far As I Know The Woman In Question Is Imprisoned. She Did Not Only Abuse Her Pets And Companions, But Her Children As Well. That Is How The Sansy Was Discovered. He Went To A Neighbor And Pleaded With Them To Call The Police For The Children. How He Managed To Get There Without The Ability To See Is A Mystery. They Have Been Taken From Her Care And She Has Been Arrested”

“Good,” Pierce said flatly.

Sansy’s may be lazy in general, but they were determined little **tanks** when they needed to be. This guy had saved three kids and hopefully himself too. Pierce was going to do his damndest to help him. “What about the Sansy?”

The bitty sat cross-legged in the man’s broad palm and crossed his arms, fretting. Pierce had never heard him speak as quietly as he did now. To date, Twister hadn’t seemed so attached to a patient so quickly either. It was unnerving. 

“Most of the physical damage has been healed with monster candy. The damage to his eyes was… extensive. One will forever be blind, the other has only a dim light. Only bother fixing the working socket on the left. The right one is hopeless.” Twister ground his fangs tightly. “I am far more concerned about the mental and emotional damage magic cannot repair. He may Fall without bonding to another soul, and soon.”

“We need to rush an adoption?” Pierce winced. Those rarely went well.

The bitty shook his head and regained his usual ‘indoor voice’, which was **still** too loud. “Humans Frighten Him Too Badly, Adults At Least. He Needs A Bitty Companion Until A Suitable Human Can Be Found, And Even Then They Must Not Be Separated. A Brother Or Sister, Not A Human Caretaker.”

“Right, got it…” Pierce took out his phone and set it on the table for Twister, then set him next to it. “Call the adoption emergency line and let them know the situation. Have them send at least twenty willing bitties. I’ll get started on that eye while you figure out who might be a good match for the Sansy.”

Twister grabbed Pierce’s sleeve before he could leave. “HE IS GREATLY CONCERNED FOR THE CHILDREN. IT IS ESSENTIAL YOU STRESS THEY ARE WELL AND NOW IN A SAFE HOME.”

“I will,” he said, curling his fingers lightly around Twister’s back to reassure him. “Thanks, tiny jackass.” 

Twister smirked nastily, though he leaned back into the contact for a second. “OF COURSE. NOW, DO YOUR JOB, YOU INEPT FOOL.” 

* * *

Five hours.

That was how long it took Pierce to remove the debris packed into the Sansy’s eyes carefully enough to prevent damaging his sockets any further. It seemed as if someone had used air-set clay and stuck them in the Sansy’s eyes. Why the bitty hadn’t tried to pull it out while it was still malleable was something Pierce didn’t want to think about. Twister had been right: no matter how hard Pierce tried to clear the sockets, it was obvious the right socket was too damaged to repair on the inside.

At least he could clear the left one and seal it with magic-infused collagen for healing.

Even though Twister had specified which one to fix, Pierce had tried both. He always did. That was why Twister specified, because Pierce was an idiot and went beyond what he needed to whether he got a reward or not. 

It was their common ground.

Twister stayed with the Sansy all night while he slowly came to from the sleeping gas. Pierce came back the next morning to help with the patient evaluation. He’d only been called for the surgery since he had so much experience telling what to do with the bitty’s delicate eye sockets. This case, however, really interested him. Mostly because he could tell that Twister was so attached.

At first the sansy, who finally told them he didn’t want his old name anymore since he knew he wasn’t going home, refused to talk about what happened to him. When the police came in to take his statements about what happened primarily to the children he was a chatterbox. Pierce was upset listening to the testimony, but he reasoned that at least they seemed to be in good overall health and had good relatives to take them in and get them counseling. 

After that statement, though, he went back to being lethargic and quiet.

Twister remained confident he would speak once he found his sibling, whoever it might be. Luckily a volunteer came in around noon with thirty or so bitties that got along well with sansy types. The sansy wasn’t having it, though. Cherries, Softies, Lil’ Bros and even Papys were turned away. He wouldn’t make puns with the two Tories, ignored the sweet Fell Undyne and Alphy, and just got mad at other Sansies. The volunteer and all of the bitties left disappointed and another group was sent four hours later near closing time.

Twister watched with a judgmental glare while the Sansy kept turning the bitties away. Punny’s, Baby Blues, Meeks, Teacups… even Grillby’s and Rays. Two more Tory’s failed, both deeply disappointed and hugging each other for comfort when they left. Three more Papy’s tried and failed, and one got headbutted for trying to pick the Sansy up. It was an absolute disaster.

Pierce left distraught and expecting to see a pile of dust in the morning. They’d done all they could, but the Sansy was already dimming and turning grey.

Twister took the deathwatch and swore fell fury at any humans that dared to try and stay, as the Sansy was just upset around them.

He could handle this by himself.

* * *

Sansy finally began to fall around seven that night. Twister stayed by him after he closed his eyes and the grey took over his bones. The pull Twister felt toward the stubborn Sansy took on a more taught feeling over time and he lay close, hoping his soul would ease a little of his pain before the end.

He hated nights like these, but the bitties he managed to save far outweighed those he lost. It was just part of being a bitty doctor.

At some point Twister fell asleep and woke when it was pitch dark. The Sansy’s hand was still in his, and the boss looked down at his charge to see how long he had left… only to see that his bones looked lighter than before.

“That’s It!” Finally, Twister realized that they’d been bringing him the wrong bitties. This Sansy had been tortured, he didn’t want a soft-hearted caretaker. He needed a protector. A bitty type with a far stronger personality like an edgy or an undyne or brassberry or…

There was no more time. Even if the adoption center woke someone up to drive over _now_ with more bitties it would still be too late. And it seemed the Sansy’s soul was already taking what it needed from Twister’s own.

Twister scrunched up his face and mulled this over for only a few moments before sighing in resignation. There was really only one thing for him to do now.

Twister held him the way papy’s often did with sansy’s and merely walked throughout the building with the smaller bitty close to his chest. The sansy relaxed in the hold, comforted by the carrying and movement and close proximity to Twister’s strong, singing soul. It’s hard work to do this for as long as it takes, but Twister is no stranger to hard work and exercise. He grins in anticipation of how doing this often for his brother will only increase his already considerable strength.

Finally, almost near dawn, the sansy stirs once their connection is firmly established and Twister no longer feels the weaker soul pulling quite so much energy to sustain itself.

After a brief, weak struggle, the sansy realizes where he is. “w-where’re we goin’?”

“You Are A Stubborn Fool.” Twister carefully held the Sansy close while he turned around to head to his apartment in the former janitor’s closet. His arms and legs burned after such a long and tiring workout, and he reveled in the feeling of a job well done. “As You Refused To Choose A Sibling, Your Sibling Has Chosen You.”

“…huh?” The sansy CHECKED himself and noticed the connection, furrowing his nonexistent brow in confusion. “why’d ya’ do somethin’ that stupid? i might’ve dragged you down with me.”

“So THAT Was Why You Refused Everyone,” Twister mused. “Regardless, I Am Powerful Enough For The Both Of Us! Now, I Am Taking You Home.”

The Sansy tensed for a second before realizing Twister didn’t mean his previous home. “y-ya’ live here? i thought one o’ the doctors was your owner?”

“Nonsense! This Is MY Building, I Graciously Allow The Humans To Occupy It As I Approve Of Their Cause,” he said.

The Sansy’s confusion bled through their connection. “then… if ya’ don’t have an owner… who is my-?”

“ME, YOU INSUFFERABLE TWIT!” Twister cleared his throat in embarrassment when his outburst made the other bitty flinch. “You Will Be Appropriately Grateful The Magnificent Twister Deems You Worthy Of His Greatness.”

“ya’ want me? heh… not a good idea, boss.” He seemed to steel himself before saying, “i’m a total cat-astrophy.”

Twister’s right eye twitched in irritation. “I Will Forgive Your Terrible Pun Because You Are Ill. Besides… I Am Quite Fond Of Cats And Even If You Are A ‘Cat-Astrophy’ As You Say… I Still Want You.”

The Sany’s eye light brightened considerably when a Papyrus Type actually _repeated his pun_. His mouth changed from a grimace to a slight grin. “hehehe… guess ya’ aint’ really giving me a choice. wonder what it’ll be like to belong to another bitty…”

Twister tutted. “WE WILL AQUIRE YOUR COLLAR TOMORROW.”

“…of course you are.” The Sansy groaned.

“AND A HORN AND APPROPRIATE ATTIRE. IT IS YOUR RESPONSIBILITY TO ANNOUNCE MY ARRIVAL AS MY HERALD IN THE LOBBY FOR ALL BITTY PATIENTS.”

“uh, kay..?”

“AND YOU WILL NOT INDULGE IN THE SANSY’S TERRIBLE HABIT OF GREASY FOODSTUFFS MORE THAN ONCE PER MONTH!”

The Sansy groaned in a dramatically suffering manner and gripped Twister’s shoulders to plead with him. “noooooooo… i’ll dust. i really will.”

“FINE!” Twister grit his sharp teeth together before relenting. “…Twice Per Week.”

The Sansy relaxed and lay his head on Twister’s collarbone. “yer the best, bro.”

“OF COURSE I AM, I AM THE MAGNIFICENT TWISTER! …Now You Must Choose A Suitable Name.”

They finally made it to the bitty house in the small room, which the Sansy looked at appreciatively as they made their way inside.

“eh… I think you just said it.”

Twister took the stairs to the upper rooms, already knowing where to put his brother for the night. “WHAT DO YOU MEAN?”

The Sansy wrapped his arms around the Boss’s neck and settled in more comfortably. If a Boss was willing to carry him like this… he was ok with this. “you said i’d be your herald. i kinda like it.”

“Very Well, Then… That Will Be Your Name.” He leaned down to place the smaller bitty in his own bed, then relented and lay down next to him when the arms around his neck tightened. “Sleep Well, Herald.”

“why’d’ya want me anyways?”

“BECAUSE! THAT IS MY DECISION AND NOT YOURS. YOU NEED NOT KNOW MY REASONING. Now… sleep. Please. You need the rest.”

“sure thing, bro. yer stayin’… right?”

Twister sighed. “Of Course.”

“thanks.”

“You Are My Brother. No Thanks Are Needed, No Talley’s Are Counted. I Want You Because I Choose To And For No Other Reason.”

The Sansy buried his face in the blanket and made a noise Twister had heard before, from the bitties that had been abandoned and cried until they dusted. 

“why?”

Twister hugged Herald close and flared his magic, desperately trying to give his brother a reason to hold on. “Because My Life Will Be Better With You In It. You Are Valuable To Me.”

“ **w h y !?** ”

“ **I DON’T KNOW!** ” he admitted loudly, making Herald flinch. “My Soul Just Connected To You So Easily. But… I Look Forward To Finding Out When You Are Well.”

Herald fell into a deep sleep only moments later. Twister prepared himself to tell Pierce a hell of a story when he arrived in a few hours.

* * *

Rita was teary-eyed a few times throughout the end of the story. “I am totally going to that office for Gaster’s next checkup,” she said while wiping her eyes.

“You’re going to pay full price at a more expensive city clinic for a visit… just to meet Twister and Herald?” Pierce yawned.

“Fuck yeah, I am! How long ago was that? Does Herald actually use a horn to announce Twister?”

Pierce groaned. “About six years: they’re best bro’s now. And… yes. He modified it so it sounds like a loud fart. Twister was _furious_.”

They laughed together and had a few more drinks before bed. 

* * *

When Rita got back home, Havoc did that bright-eye stare thing and grumbled unhappily before going to sleep in the bitty house. 

Rita knew he wasn’t happy about her dating Pierce, mostly because he had a personal grudge against him for some odd reason. Maybe he’d talk to her about it later.

She went to check on Gaster and found him asleep on his couch with a little piece of paper curled tightly in his hand hung over the side. Rita stared curiously, wondering what it was. A piece of wrapper or what? It wasn’t like the Gaster to hold onto trash. It took a bit of her eyes adjusting to the dim light in the room, but she managed to spot that his fingertips were several different colors and the paper had splotches of that same watercolor look.

Her eyes widened in surprise and shot to the doorway when she heard Havoc chuckling. “i jus’ gave ‘im one piece n’ he couldn’t help himself.”

Quickly she stood and walked into the living room and sat on the floor in a mild shock. Havoc appeared in her lap with a shit-eating grin looking entirely too pleased with himself. 

Rita took a few deep breaths and glared down at him. “That was a mean trick. I wanted him to tell me on his own. And how the hell did you figure it out, you insufferable gremlin?”

“i caught the sneaky fucker scratchin’ his face a lot in the same spot. turns out he was usin’ the same finger every time – the one that makes white paint. i had ta’ look real damn close to see the shine while it was still wet. he’s been coverin’ up the little black spot on his cheek like every half hour. it’d take a lot of scrubbin’ to get all that shit off.”

Rita palmed her face. Clever little… it hadn’t even come off when Pierce washed him in the office. “An Inky Gaster. _Holy **fuck**_ those are rare! At most I was thinking he was a Sciguy that got hell from past owners making a mess or burning stuff with his experiments or something.”

“somethin’ like that – s’ just he loves to paint on everything. walls, floors, ankles, shoes, baseboards… anything he can reach. s’ just what they do,” Havoc shrugged. “guess some dumbass humans’d consider that a mess.”

Rita sighed and scratched his skull. “Yeah. They sound like dumbasses to me too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those who like the Bitty Tales: I have more. I wrote so many tiny one-shots before I decided to write this that they’ll be 7-ish chapters all by themselves, whether they fit into the narrative or not. They will be here. Just stay tuned.
> 
> Kudos to SeaRose88 for guessing my plan for Gaster’s type correctly in chapter 5!
> 
> Ink Gaster was created by Tumblr user Comyet, for the AU Ink!tale. I’ve never encountered his bitty form and couldn’t resist. He has the same powers as Inky Sans, just stronger and better controlled. 
> 
> The Inktale bitty type producing watercolor paints from their own phalanges came from Bitty and the Beast by DreamingMystic. I don’t know if it’s an official thing for Inky’s to do, but it was such a wonderful addition to the ability roster that I hope they don’t mind me carrying it on. 
> 
> My take on Inky Gasters: 
> 
> Nature: Creative and Excitable, Grumpy if interrupted while making art.
> 
> Maintenance: High. Instead of water-based paint that doesn’t stain and comes off easily like Inky Sansy, Inky Gasters have stronger paint, making them more of a nuisance to clean up after. Repainting what they color on is easier, and the adoption agencies suggest you give them specific walls to color on and paint it a dark color so that further coats will hide the scribbling better. If they can find loose materials like sticks and string, they will build scaffolding to paint higher until they reach the ceiling.
> 
> Care: Inky Gasters can mostly take care of themselves but may become depressed if their art isn’t complimented. They enjoy companionship of humans that aren’t too cuddly and have a more subtle manner of showing affection. 


End file.
